Exit Stage Left
by skyflyte12
Summary: Time travelling, in Harry's opinion, was a lot like being pushed down the stairs in a towel; painful, unexpected and you inevitably end up naked in the end
1. Threatening Thursdays

Ahem. This story has been officially Disclaimed. I am not JK Rowling, nor am I in possession of any kind of contract that would allow me to own the Harry Potter world, I am simply someone hijacking her universe and refusing to tell it right. I don't know about you, but I'm sure as hell not earning any kind of compensation for whiling away my time typing whatever the hell I feel like, so I'm allowed to mess it up as much as I see fit. Thankyou for taking the time (or not, as it may be) for my sad sob story, and at least you know by now that I Disclaim this story and universe.

§_Parseltounge_§

* * *

"It's more the fact that you exist really…"

**Exit Stage Left**

••Threatening Thursdays••

…_with a high chance of things going B.A.D_

There was something to be said for coffee. Coffee, Harry acknowledged, must have been gifted to mortals by the Gods. There was really nothing else like it _or_ that could even hope to compare to its heavenly goodness (no matter how many times Remus waxed-poetic about lindt chocolate).

Harry Potter was hunched over a shabby table with a mug of coffee clutched tightly in his hands, gazing pensively into the liquid before taking a deep swig of it, sighing as it warmed him - just like magic.

He heard footsteps approaching and glanced suspiciously from side-to-side, subconsciously clutching the mug tighter and pulling it closer to himself – he would swear that there was some kind of horrible game going on amongst the others over who could steal his morning piece of bliss and relaxation. He smirked to himself, congratulating himself for his artful evasion of the previous morning, wherein he made _the_ Luna Lovegood fly off the handle and curse his very existence and make insinuations about his parentage and particularly vulgar suggestions about what must have _really_ managed to spawn him due to his zealous recruitment of 'blabbering humdingers' and 'fooling churlins' to give her some vague resemblance to Voldemort or, as they had taken to referring to him, the 'Dark Queen' or 'Dark Tosser', due to that nasty piece of taboo curse work making them unable to say his contrived name.

The footsteps were just outside the door when they paused, and Harry found himself fingering his wand as the door opened. He relaxed a little the moment he saw the vivid Weasley-red hair, and he moved the hand that had been fingering his wand back to his coffee mug – just in case – and proceeded to completely ignore the man that had entered.

The red-head stood awkwardly in the doorway for a moment before clearing his throat, "Er, morning Harry."

Harry grunted and hunched over his mug just that little bit more, not in the mood to answer in even monosyllables at what he perceived as early in the morning.

The tall man's mouth curved up at one corner, as if this behaviour was expected and appreciated for its entertainment value (which, had Harry been caught at a later time, he would grudgingly agree that it was probably mildly funny for an observer) and scratched the back of his neck nervously, "Harry, the others would like you to go to the Great Hall as soon as you can – they've got something they want to give you."

Harry's vibrant green eyes narrowed and gazed piercingly at Ronald Weasley, his former-best-friend-slash-paid-guard-dog-slash-friend-that-got-a-second-chance-when-he-saved-his-life-through-some-stupid-gryffindor-suicidal-heroics as he wondered just what would cause them to ask him to go up there. Hell, he was fairly sure that a number of the families that now lived communally in Hogwarts held him almost singularly responsible for the deaths of their loved ones, which tended to make meals just a smudge uncomfortable. He had stopped eating there after one of the men – he didn't bother to remember the name or face – had poisoned his bloody morning coffee (sacrilege!) after which he had decided that it would be better for all concerned if he wasn't so visible, as it were.

The only reason he didn't die right then and there was the fact that he had had that inconvenient confrontation with Slytherin's over-sized pet snake that poisoned him in second year and survived the encounter with the polished Potter Luck and Fawkes' tears, though the poison was still circulating in his blood, which had the happy coincidence of burning out other poisons entering his body and bloodstream. Convoluted much?

Harry raised an eyebrow at his friend in question, which was his pre-caffeine way of saying 'The Hell?' with large capital letters.

Ron's face twisted, doing interesting things to the jagged scar that disfigured the left side of it, which included the destruction of his eye, over which he wore an eye patch which he was given by a muggle-born student as a thankyou-for-saving-my-family-even-though-you-almost-got-killed gift.

Ron had since been quite obstinate about the 'awesomeness' of said eye patch, although he never did figure out why all the people who had grown up with a clue about the muggle world would break into snickers when they first saw him, slipping in 'aye aye, captain' when he gave them orders. Apparently, wizards had never heard of something as 'uncouth' as pirates. It only got worse when aspiring young prankster Tracey Hollis convinced Ron to say 'aye' instead of 'yes.'

There was an ongoing bet concerning when (if ever) he would find out, as well as a parallel one on when Hermione would crack and scream it at him. There were almost daily pranks involving Doris the parrot that had 'taken a liking' (Harry's part in that particular venture had never been discovered) to Ron, mostly involving the thing sitting on his shoulder and saying things like 'hit the deck!', 'walk the plank!', 'ya scurvy dogs' and 'Put the Dark Tosser in Davy Jones' Locker!' at random intervals, not to mention his clothes constantly being transfigured without his permission. It had become something of a hobby of some of the… less responsible individuals to teach the parrot silly catchphrases for entertainment, and then betting on how many she would reproduce on any one day, if she would add in variations, and if Sir Cadogan would take offense. It was a fairly lucrative venture for Harry, who had an edge over the competition.

The teasing at Ron's oblivious expense had gotten worse when the red-head had needed a peg-leg after a skirmish in which he was eventually able to avenge his mother against Lucius Malfoy. The Snr. Blond Prat's death was met with a perpetual week-long party and celebration by the Hogwarts refugee/exiled/rebel community.

But the weird and twisted kind of humour that had been acquired by the current occupants of Hogwarts castle is neither here nor there, nor are the large betting pools of said occupants (or that Hermione Granger was almost singularly responsible for the beginning of the said illegal and officially imaginary gambling ring).

What _was _current, was the fact that this was Not Routine. And anything that was Not Routine was generally bad for Harry Potter, currently named Undesirable Number 1. of wizarding Britain, The-git-that-just-won't-die and He-who-keeps-breathing-even-if-we-don't-want-him-to.

Seriously, Harry had read the last one off the front page of the Daily Report, the 'Prophet' having suffered an extremely hostile take-over a few years previous, when somehow 'mysteriously' there was no one watching the alert wards that night so the Light Defence didn't come running to the rescue. Harry maintained that it was an honest mistake – how could he tell the difference between Voldemort's attack on a gossip rag and that the Knight Bus had finally managed to crash into a large water tower outside of London, thus sending them to the wrong location?

…They _had_ glanced at him sideways when he burst into evil laughter for a moment there, but he'd convinced them in the end. He always did – after all, his truth was constantly more strange and wild then anything _anyone_ could hope to invent, so they really had no option but to believe him. (Mwah hwah hah ha!)

But even so, his possible enabling of the Death Munchers was also not an immediate concern.

Harry blinked and took another sip of _his_ coffee furrowing his brow and glancing around the room. He turned back to Ron and frowned, "This isn't another attempt to steal my coffee, is it?" He asked suspiciously, naturally jumping to what he considered was the worst possible motive his maybe-friend-again could have at this awful time in the morning.

Ron stared at him for a moment before slapping a hand to his forehead. He seemed to freeze up for a second, before breaking into loud laughter. Harry just sat there, cradling his coffee while waiting for Ron to stop his hysterics. The red-head managed to get himself under control, although was still chuckling under his breath as he shook his head, "No, Harry. No one is going to steal your coffee. I think we learnt the lesson that time Minnie was stuck as a mouse for a week… and I'm not even going to mention the unspeakable horrors of the Withdrawal of 99'. Wizard's Word. They've only gotta give you something. You _do_ know what day it is, right?"

Harry was slightly pouting at the mention of the 'W' word, but was willing to overlook that in favour of riddling out just what in the world his friend was talking about. "…Er… actually, no. No, I don't even know what the date is, now I think about it – it's much safer that way."

Ron shook his head in exasperation at his long-time-with-a-gap-in-the-middle friend. "Harry, it's the 31st of July – you know, your birthday. This is the day you are _supposed_ to get presents. And, for your information, it's also Th-"

"NOOO!!" Harry yelled, jumping up at the expense of the bit of coffee he had left in an attempt at stopping his friend from telling him the day of the week.

But it was too late.

"-ursday. You know, the day after Wednesday and before Friday." He blinked, just realising that his friend was in front of him and was quick to duck the right hook that almost got his nose. He backed away from his scowling friend, putting his hands in front of his face to deflect future punches and coincidentally in the universally recognised gesture of 'Don't Hit me! I can't defend myself!' He opened up his good eye only to see a darkly scowling Harry Potter moving back to his seat to drink down the rest of his coffee. "The hell was that?" was the only thing he could think of saying at the violent behaviour.

Harry scowled darkly at the empty mug. "You just _had_ to tell me what day it is, didn't you? By the Potter's Luck theory, what day of the week it is depends on how much chance I've got of running into trouble. Frickin' _Thursdays_ (he almost spat the word) are the absolute worst day. Closely followed by Mondays and Fridays. Stupid Thursdays _always_ go bad." Harry grumbled to himself as he vanished the cup that had held his morning 'fix' and scowled petulantly at the table, which had quite a few cracks in it.

Ron looked confused for a moment before his eye widened slightly, "Cor, I thought you'd dropped that stupid 'day's of the week' theory!"

Harry stared incredulously at Ron, before finally saying, "Mate, there is a reason why I don't like to know the days – it's too much of a risk at tempting the stupid Potter curse. Bloody thing. One ancestor hundreds of years ago pisses off a Sorceress and all the first borns are cursed with bi-polar Luck. Just figures." His face scrunched up for a second, remembering the encounter with that portrait of his ancestor that cheerfully informed him that his life expectancy was 'on the short side' because he had pissed on a few goats and made them produce yellow milk for a year. Apparently, most first-borns died within 50 years – although if the Potter waited to have a child after 40 years, the first-born would only get a very mild case of the curse. Harry thought that the curse had answered the puzzle over why his blood grandparents had waited so late in life to have a child.

He had been quite on the pissed-off side, at least until the portrait started telling him that most of the Pureblood families had been cursed in one way or another – the Malfoy's weren't originally _genetically_ like that (just so you know), the Weasley's just _had_ to have lots of children, the Black's were almost universally unhinged in one way or another, and the Lovegood's … well, that was fairly self-explanatory. There were other examples, but they were mostly about dead lines (mostly caused _by_ the curse) but all this information made Harry far more accepting, if only because he had the consolation that it could have been a lot worse. It helped that he'd fully expected to be dead by that point anyway, thanks to the Dark Tosser.

Ron seemed to follow where this was going, but just shrugged, non-verbally saying 'what can ya do?' before he opened the door again, "Well, just come up in a few minutes. There shouldn't be much people – all the malcontents cleared out when they heard about who the gift was for."

Ron moved out of the floor, his wooden leg 'thumping' along in a way starkly reminiscent of the late 'Mad-Eye Moody', although no one would ever call Ron paranoid. Ron and paranoid went together as well as Hermione and stupid – in other words, not at all.

Harry ran a hand through his perpetually messy raven hair and sighed. Ron obviously thought that Harry had believed him, but Harry was fairly intelligent and could read people well (something picked up early on in his 'childhood') and it was as plain as day that there was a third dimension in him going to the Great Hall than what was being said.

He drummed his fingers against the surface of the table before resentfully getting to his feet and moving towards a section of wall that sported a picture of a young man, but the important part was that there was a snake coiled lazily in the painted sun. Harry stared at it for a moment before hissing, §_a monkey's uncle_§ which caused the painting to become transparent, after which Harry walked through it without hesitation.

What he had entered into was the 'pipe' system that the Basilisk in second year had used to traverse the halls of Hogwarts unseen. Of course, it wasn't so much pipes as it was a network of passage ways interspersed with larger passages that would allow movement for the snake. There was of course a long and drawn out story about accidentally insulting Slytherin's Grandfather's portrait that somehow ended in the coot smugly detailing just how _grandiose _and _cunning_ his grandson had been by putting snakes into portraits and making it so they would respond to a parseltounge password, and that the universal override for said passwords was saying 'I kissed Godric Gryffindor' twelve times (apparently he decided that it was so far out of the realm of reality that no one would ever dare guess it, much less a parseltounge that had come from his _noble_ line).

Even imagining that gave Harry nightmares for days.

The senile man had gone off on a tangent about how Salazar had been able to 'ghost' the halls because he had blocked off the best and most extensive shortcuts with parseltounge blocks.

Of course, one would wonder what made the Pure-blood grandfather of Salazar Slytherin himself 'drop the ball' so completely, as it were. Well, the reason was that the portrait _only_ spoke parseltounge (even if it could understand english) and thus assumed that all Harry would hear was garbled hissing. The look on the painting's face when Harry had said §_thankyou_§ after it had finished detailing the 'most Brilliant accomplishments of Salazar Slytherin' was priceless, and enough to fuel several powerful Patronus charms the following weeks.

Thus lead to his scouring of Hogwarts and the subsequent revamping of all the parseltounge passwords, which Harry judiciously and gleefully chose decidedly muggle phrases and lines – he had been curiously fond of quoting The Lion King when in the dungeons.

Anyway, nowadays he mostly travelled through these passages because no one could access them other than himself, and he was confident that even if they discovered the trick of looking for snakes, they would never be able to get the password right while simultaneously 'speaking' parseltounge.

Why would he go to the trouble of doing this just to get a clear corridor? Well, roughly five years back the Tosser basically hijacked the British Government. With that came all the fun things – public execution of 'seditionists' (meaning rebels, for those who are not very loquacious), muggle hunting seasons, complete and utter dislocation from the muggle world, controlling of the press, controlling of travelling and emigration, dictatorship and the oppression of the other magical beings. Yeah, fun time all round; especially since Harry may as well have had a large glowing neon sign on his forehead that screamed 'No. 1 target!' for the world to hear – but the unique and one-of-a-kind-impossible-to-duplicate _lightning bolt_ shaped scar on the aforementioned area worked just as well, perhaps even better than the sign would have.

_Anyway_, commiserating over two years of scrounging food and fighting skirmishes with the Munchers is actually off-track of his own lamenting over the fact that Hogwarts was officially the Last Stand of the Rebels, otherwise known as the 'Blood Traitors Convention' or simply 'That Large Castle'.

Hogwarts didn't act primarily as a school anymore – after the falling of the Ministry and the beginnings of the 'Mudblood Murders' (their words, not ours) all of the witches and wizards under attack because of close ties to the muggle world were brought into the castle for protection. The number of families just kept growing, and now the castle was practically packed to the rafters, although that handy piece of magic called 'wizard's space' solved many shortage problems.

Hogwarts was, quite simply, the last place that was free from the Tosser's rule in England. After a good few tantrums and such, mostly resulting in the depletion of his own forces, Tom had simply ignored it. He had seized an old sprawling mansion from the Parkinson's coffers and set up his own Wizarding school, with him as its Founder. The school was, from what Harry could gather from talking to some of the snakes that were in the grounds, a lot like those Hitler Youth Groups in WWII, and was almost singularly devoted to indoctrinating the next generation of fanatical Tosser supporters – in that 'school', he had done no wrong – he was 'working for the betterment and purity of the wizarding world'.

At first, Harry had been more than a little leery at the idea that the Dark Queen had just decided to ignore a huge cache of rebels, but as weeks turned into months, and months turned into years, he found that either Tom had developed patience (not likely) or he had decided that there was no threat in them and that he'd do better in stabilising and cementing his stranglehold over wizarding Britain rather than focusing on defeating an enemy that might be able to kill him (rather more likely). And, as far as Harry knew, that 'might' just may as well have been a synonym for 'not-a-snowball's-chance-in-hell,' and apparently Tommie knew it too.

Oh, Hogwarts wasn't left totally alone – there was the odd sabotaged imported foods, the rigorous but necessary checks put in place to ensure that none of the population were Tosser sympathisers or Munchers, and they had grown used to the odd exploding letter turning up at dinner, but compared to the worst-case scenario – namely the DE's laying Siege on the magical castle or a group of Ward Breakers working round-the-clock for however long was necessary for the dismantling and/or complete destruction of the Hogwarts wards, it was manageable.

And three guesses who was a pariah even amongst the rebels of Hogwarts? The first two don't count.

Yup, you guessed it – Harry Potter, apparently perpetual Undesirable No. 1, even amongst the people that he was supposed to save. The whole Prophesy had been leaked to the Daily Prophet when it first became apparent that the Tosser had been resurrected and was killing again. They quickly snatched him up, cheering on the 'Chosen One.' Unfortunately, that prophesy didn't come into action fast enough (wizards had an issue with instant gratification, something only increased and cemented by the use of magic) and they quickly began to blame _him_ for his _failure_ to kill the 'Most Powerful and Evil Dark Lord in at least a Century' and thus began scape-goating him _again_. He had only been 17 when that happened, and at 21 he was no closer to being able to go toe-to-toe with the Tosser and prevail. Sure, he may be powerful, but there was still a huge gap between his skills and the Dark Queen's.

Everyone had then started becoming fond of the odd attack against his person to 'avenge' their dead family members, mainly because he was visible and an easier target that the Tosser.

That was the story of his life.

But he had accepted it, to a point – he just avoided the sheeple that were likely to attack him, and everyone was good.

He was just happy that he didn't blame _himself_ for not being able to kill the Tosser – it had been rocky there at the start; after all, that _was_ his conditioned response, courtesy of the late _Dumbledore_. He had been quickly disabused of this notion, by (funnily enough) Luna Lovegood, who pointed out that wizards and witches were responsible for their own actions, and if they didn't take up the fight to defend themselves, why should he be responsible for their inaction? Why should they believe he should be able to kill the Tosser while they themselves made no attempts? Deaths were an inevitable part of war, and the Wizarding World had brought it on itself, both by ignoring the problem after the Tosser's first downfall, and by becoming corrupt, complacent and stagnant.

It didn't stop the grief he had for his allies that died, as well as his closer friends that fell on raids, but it went a long way towards helping himself through his grief and learning to accept that life was fragile and ever-changing – you just had to believe that wherever they went, they were most likely in a better place than they left – it was the ones who had been left behind that you should feel sorry for. He cherished his memories of the departed, and came to view them as the 'better days'.

It was sad when it was almost accepted as a normal occurrence that those closest to you in life would die – those at Hogwarts had been numbed and yet awakened to the ultimate truth of life – that death was inevitable, and often came sooner than was expected.

But even the acceptance of their deaths would not ward away the nightmares of their deaths and the moments in which he just _might_ have made a difference, changed their fate.

But moments departed and things that could not be were not healthy to be dwelling on.

Harry reached the intersection that emerged in that chamber off the side of the Great Hall and poked the snake that was inscribed there in the left eye, causing it to hiss obscenities and slither away in a circular movement which revealed an arch that he had to squeeze through to appear in the room. The stone melted back over the opening as soon as he left it, leaving nothing more than a blank stretch of wall on which, had you carefully studied it, you would find an inch long carving that was the counterpart of the larger one on the other side of the passage.

The room was empty, which was just as well, considering that he didn't want to deal with people snarking about withholding 'vital' information about the structure of Hogwarts. He could hear it now: _"We need to know everything about our last Haven! Anything we don't know the Tosser could use against us!"_ It had been surprisingly catchy, getting the population to call him the 'Dark Tosser' that is. It was that strange sense of humour shining through.

Harry moved towards the doorway, dodging the stuff that was just hanging around, mostly consisting of portraits that had doubles in the Ministry or Pureblood houses that had consented to be spies for Hogwarts – not that it really did them much good anymore; it had been three years since the last rebel attacks on the Tosser's government, simply because it was now akin to suicide to openly defy him – the Tosser had gotten control of the Ministry magical trackers, allowing them to track movement ridiculously easily so there was almost no chance at the element of surprise. Oh sure, they'd found ways to avoid the scanners – you were tracked by magic through wands and also the spells that were engineered by the Ministry, which had been crafted to actually use a bit of your own magic to send back information to the Government about the spells you use (it was all a huge conspiracy initiated by the corrupt ministry hundreds of years ago when they convinced the population that magic needed rigid guidelines) and what level of power you are able to put into the constructs. It had been a frightening discovery that witches and wizards had not actually needed wands x amount of centuries ago, but the amount of conditioning and the decline of magic accessible by the population had meant the change to wands to help bring out and utilise magic that had once been second nature.

It was something of common knowledge amongst the Hogwarts rebels, and children were now encouraged to learn to tap into and control their magic wandless from as early an age as they had it, although they needed a medium when they reached eleven to access and properly use their magics, working the newly created spells that were free of the ministry tampering that had been crafted by a few brilliant minds that resided within Hogwarts, Hermione Granger at the lead. The adults were being re-educated, with mixed results – most of the older generation just did not believe it was possible, and so they were incapable of it. They had found that belief, will power and intent had the most effect on who was able to cast magic through the new ways.

It was actually a funny story about how they discovered that you didn't necessarily need wands to work magic – you see, it had all started with a harmless prank conducted by Gred and Forge, self-proclaimed Masters of Prankery, on the one and only Harry Potter. They had snitched his wand and replaced it with what was essentially a polished stick identical to it. When they saw that he just went about casting spells as normal, they were understandably put out that he had detected their prank and managed to snatch back his wand. It had been a few months when they found a certain phoenix-feather core wand that had fallen behind the closet in their room. The fall out from the fact that Harry had been perfectly capable of using magic without the assistance of a wand, mostly (it was theorised) because he had no reason to think that it wouldn't work and that he expected it to happen, was huge. It had basically revolutionised the inhabitant's views on what magic was capable of, once it was proved that it wasn't a strictly Potter thing.

Harry had not needed a wand since, but he usually kept his around for the comfort that it granted – kinda comparable to a kid's security blanket (no matter how viciously he denied it).

The argument for how it worked was simply that why should magic have such restrictions? Magic is magic, after all, although they quickly realised that a wizard's core power did affect just what and how much you could do in a day, and that exercising that core could increase it, to a point.

There were a lot of people that simply didn't even attempt to do it – Hermione particularly stuck to crafting spells and her beloved logic about limitations, and most of the old families or people who had been closely attached to the wizarding world found themselves unable to abandon the rules that they had lived by and been taught from childhood. The new form of magic was most easily picked up by first generation muggle-borns (because the rules were less ingrained into them) and children that were taught by witches or wizards that were capable of either using the foci or going without, because then they _believed_ that it was possible. They found that the kids simply couldn't do it if they were taught by an obviously sceptical teacher, because then the person's beliefs would be communicated to the child. Another limitation they found was that children needed a magical focus – usually a stone with magical properties, or even an ingredient that had been used in wands – and that it was possible to decrease dependency on the foci as they grew older and more in control of their magic.

The best thing was that this new approach to magic had not been heard of by the DE's or the Tosser, nor had any of the rebels become turncoat and ran to the New Ministry with the knowledge – they were not being monitored by the Tosser either, so the rebels liked to think they had an edge over the competition – one that had been keeping them safe from attack since the new Black Magic wards had been erected around Hogwarts. Black Magic had been part of the construction of the Dark Mark, and was a part of the Horcrux ritual that the Tosser had undergone, so they were fine – Black Magic was those magics focused solely towards torture, murder and the destruction of life in all forms, and was a very good thing to be blocked out of Hogwarts, seeing as that was what Old Mold and his minions used liberally.

Harry paused and shook his head – what was it with him and reminiscing about the past lately? He took a moment to gather his fabled 'Gryffindor Courage' (more like irrational stupidity, but he'd take what he could get) and opened the door – this was the first time that he had actually seen so many people at once for at least a year, probably more since he'd taken to hiding in the most out-of-the-way places.

The door opened and Harry scanned the room – there were even more people than he had counted on; at least twenty. He caught the eyes of a few people – Hermione, Minerva, Remus, Fred, George, Bill, Luna, Fleur, Hannah, Amelia, Tonks, Andromeda, Flitwick and lastly Susan in that first glance, before he noticed something strange. All eyes, which he had assumed were on him, were actually directed a little bit to his left. The knowledge came too late, however, and he whipped his head around just in time to see the profile of Ron before the stunner hit him square in the back.

Everything blacked out and he couldn't help but wonder if his bi-polar Luck had finally caught up with him.

**«±ΰ±»**

(Dramatic Pause)

_Heh heh heh. I am going to be absolutely evil and leave this as a cliff-hanger, even if you already know what's gonna happen. Why? You may ask. Just 'cause. I made a snap decision and now I'm working on becoming evil – I think it has a good dental plan, but I'll get back to you on that (it would have to, what with all the cookies they give out). _

_In all seriousness, I'd love ta hear how you Potter fans feel bout my little fic, so pretty please with cookies on top press that button marked 'review' cos you know I work on positive reinforcement and chocolate. Oh, and Pepsi max. _

_Anyways, ta ta and goodbye, mayhaps I'll hear from you peoples out there._

_Signed the ever insane (and aspiring evil person), Skyflyte12._


	2. Forced Foray

**Exit Stage Left**

••Forced Foray••

…_with a high chance of time travel_

§_Parseltounge_§

There are some moments in life in which you find yourself unbelievably embarrassed, but are able to look back on those moments and laugh about them later.

When Harry Potter woke up naked in the middle of Diagon Alley, he immediately knew a few things: 1/ He had absolutely no idea how he got there. 2/ He was fairly sure he _didn't_ remember having that tattoo before. 3/ He was _never_ going to be able to live this down. 4/ He felt like he had the hangover of the century. Oh, and 5/ If he was able to laugh at this later, he was going to have to get himself a big old-fashioned bag of REVENGE first.

Apart from that, it really was just another day in the life of Harry Potter.

Higher brain function had mostly ground to a halt, and he was still pulling a blank on just how he wound up here (but couldn't really bring himself to think about the logistics of that just yet) so when he felt someone poking his shoulder and realised that that was most likely the reason he had woken up, he blearily looked up into a face that he could have sworn shouldn't have been there, but he shrugged off his suspicions of resurrected dead (it caused too much pain for his already bad headache) and focused on his (its?) voice.

"Ah, sir? How bout we get you up and into the Cauldron, yeah? We don't want to leave the poor muggleborn students and their parents with a bad first impression when they come for the tours soon, do we? Here, put this on, and I'll help you up. I'll even give you breakfast on the house, yeah? Looks like you could use it, ya poor bloke." Tom, the once-owner and barkeeper of the Leaky Cauldron had conjured a robe while he was talking and held it out to Harry, which he had the presence of mind to quickly pull on. Harry blindly got up at Tom's prompting (or was it the man's evil twin?) and allowed himself to be steered through the archway to the Leaky Cauldron, not really paying attention to the man's rueful muttering about bachelor parties and 'tradition'.

The next moment, he found himself being pushed into a seat at the bar, a headache relieving potion in one hand and a glass of water in the other, told to just relax as Tom was going to get him breakfast.

Without a thought about how uncomfortable drinking poison could be, Harry chugged both down and wished for the best, happy when he didn't feel anything different for the consumption of the liquids, apart from the horrible concoction that was the headache potion – it must have been a cross between hippogriff dung and salamander toenails, or something equally as vile – really, you'd think the wizarding world would try for stuff that _didn't_ make you want to obliviate yourself after being dosed.

The water didn't really help, and Harry was contemplating conjuring up some soap to wash his mouth out (no matter how bad it tasted and how many people would stare at him, even in the wizarding world) when the old barkeep dropped a plate of toast, bacon and eggs in front of him.

He mindlessly pulled the plate toward him, picking up the utensils and started eating. He could just _sense_ Tom's amusement at his silent and immediate following of the man's prompting, but really couldn't be bothered. He easily tracked the bartender as the man moved around the room, handing out a few meals to the scant few occupants of the pub at what Harry assumed to be an extremely and atrociously early hour (especially considering he had been enjoying sleeping in past noon) and wasn't really surprised when the man got behind the bar to kind-of hover in that way that all trained hospitality people did to make customers think that it was a good idea to tell them your life story.

All was silent, and Harry was steadily making his way through his bacon and toast when Tom cracked and revealed that he was too curious to let Harry eat in peace. The voice was filled with humour, Harry idly noted, and he questioned, "So, what's a young man like you doing naked in Diagon Alley?"

Ah, just the regular conversation starter, then.

Harry mentally gave the man points – he certainly had the right mix of humour, geniality and curiosity to get your regular Joe to spill their guts. And since he apparently had to pretend to be the regular Joe, he should probably pretend, anyway. He let out a long, put-upon sigh. If there was anything Harry Potter was good at, it was dramatics. He slouched in his seat, and took on a slightly boy-ish persona that made the people who were interrogating him more pliable and began, "Well, it all started last night…"

He really only paid half a mind to his story, made up on-the-fly with no real elements to it. It was specially crafted to get Tom to trust him – give the old man something to laugh about, get him in a position to not be suspicious of you, add in odd details that he would see as signs that you really had no idea how to audit your words, thus removing any element of doubt that you could be some kind of threat – the usual stuff that you have to do when you're a stranger that turned up naked at his front door. It was standard procedure. You get used to averting attention after the weirdest situations when you lived his type of life.

While he was telling his story, his mind was on other things. He _really _did need to figure out just how the hell he'd gotten to Diagon Alley, why – because it hadn't really registered before the headache potion kicked in – the street was filled with people striding about in colourful robes like they hadn't a care in the world, and why the shop fronts looked like they had when he was still in school. Oh, not to mention that he was talking to a zombie, because Tom the Leaky Cauldron bartender was dead.

Yeah, good things to think on.

Think think think.

…

He was kinda slow, wasn't he?

Okay, _think_. What do I remember last? Ron. Ron! That son of a… er. Well, probably not a good idea to insult the dead. Freaky beyond powers and all. Well, that utter bastard! He hit me with a stunner! In the back! In the Great Hall, rallying place for Potter Haters everywhere. Ooooh. It's all coming back. He could remember waking up, now.

_He was cold. Well, cold was relative, really. It was mildly chilly. _

«•Flashback: How He got into this mess•»

The return to consciousness didn't reassure Harry.

Hs arm twitched, and he instantly recognised the feeling one gets when they are tied up.

He'd had more than enough experience with it, after all.

Well ain't that a comforting thought – the situation was not without precedent.

His captors though… well, they left something to be desired. But at least it wasn't old snakey – the last time this happened he'd run out of various torture devices and decided to sit Harry down for continuous re-runs of Big Brother. It hadn't had quite the instant impact as say, a good ol' carving, but after a while… well. Let's just say that was probably one of the driving forces towards his encroaching insanity.

Fortunately, when one of the DE guards had started foaming at the mouth, he'd been able to sneak out the back door.

But he dragged himself back to the present, and keeping his eyes firmly shut he stretched out his magical senses and affirmed that he recognised every single person in the room. Traitors.

Of course, he wasn't exactly sure _why_ they were traitors right now, but it was safe to say that anyone who decided to knock you out and tie you up shouldn't exactly be on your Christmas card list.

"We know your awake, Harry." Well, they've got the 'I know what you're doing and you are under our control' thing down.

"Yesss?" He really had to learn to control his sarcasm.

Really.

He didn't go off half-cocked because it was fun, that's for sure. Actually, it kinda ended up the opposite.

He opened his eyes to meet the faces that he expected – standing in front of him were Minerva McGonagall, Hermione Granger, Remus Lupin and Ronald Weasley (synonymous with bastard, as far as he was concerned) and he could see the others spaced out around him, in a big circle. Ooooh, they seemed to know how to play 'circle the captive'.

They seemed to pause, as if waiting for him to start cursing their existence, calling them 'traitors', insulting their existence or whatever it was people do when they find out all their friends have turned on them. Well, he didn't exactly feel like playing the poor captive and betrayed friend, so he just sat there, slightly uncomfortable with the sensation of the sticking charms which held him in place (impossible for him to cancel, at least right now) and there was an awkward silence where all of them kinda shuffled around before they glanced at each other uncertainly.

When Minnie realised he wasn't going to start screaming at them about releasing him, she cleared her throat a little uncomfortably and continued on, "Well… Harry, we have a plan."

Harry very obviously eyed the floor, to which he was glued, and then the weird design on the floor, which it seemed he was the centre of, and then the circle of his friends that were pointing wands at him, before he drawled, "Well, I'd imagine so."

Because, really, what could you say to that?

She seemed once again thrown at his lack of… proper prisoner etiquette, perhaps? Well, whatever it was, she seemed a little put out that he wasn't going to go off at them. He found this funny – really, he'd learnt that all you had to do was greet the Tosser as 'ol' Tommie ol' pal' and he'd fly off the handle, usually crucio-ing you so much and then storming out, forgetting that he'd caught his DE's in the process.

His old professor threw him a strange look, pursing her lips, before deciding to continue on, "Well Mr. Potter, we had an idea. This idea was at first considered impossible, but after a bit of time our situation got so that we dug up this idea and decided to give it a go. With Miss Granger and our spell crafter's help, we made a breakthrough that, we are hoping, will save us from Voldemort – even allow you to save a lot of people that have been casualties of this Blood War."

Harry stared mutely at her. She'd cracked. There was nothing else for it. Oh Lordy, they were all doomed.

Minnie proceeded to motion to Granger (for she was not Hermione, considering she was one of the people responsible for tying him up) and said, "Now, Miss Granger is going to explain our breakthrough to you."

Granger cleared her throat, and Harry caught the gleam in her eyes that she got on a zealous book-high, which was automatically followed by all incomprehensible and highly worded stuff on the intricate theories of… well anything. And thus it really shouldn't have surprised anyone that when she started in her lecturing voice using words such as 'antiquated' and 'antecedent' he didn't catch a whit.

He just kind of stared at her as her mouth moved, his eyes unfocused and generally not appreciating being practically hog-tied and tortured via lecturing. Although he had to admit that it was a better method than some that the Tosser had pulled out of his arse.

After what seemed like forever, McGonagall seemed to notice his inattention and cut over Granger. "- Basically, Mr. Potter, what we are going to do is send you back in time."

Well there isn't really anything you could say to that either.

But at least it was all the affirmation he'd ever need to label her insane.

Everyone was, once again, looking at him as if curious as to how he would react. Since staying lamely silent didn't seem like the right course, he just went with a genial, "Sure, let me just grab my coat."

Minnie blinked, but seemed to be able to pick up on his heavy sarcasm.

"We are not joking here, Mr. Potter."

Harry raised an eyebrow, but in a voice that was sure to push her buttons he said, "I'm sure you don't think you aren't."

Her lips thinned, but she turned to Granger and Lupin instead and nodded her head.

They approached him, stepping carefully so as to avoid scuffing the designs on the floor as they did so. He wasn't all that worried – after all, if they thought they were going to send him back in time, apparently with a weird ritual that probably involved them all standing around this design thing and chanting, chances were they needed him alive. Well that, and he didn't think they could kill him, no matter how obnoxious he got – he'd avoided annoyance-driven murder before now, after all.

Granger got to him first, and knelt down in front of him. She didn't go into the 'oh, it's for your own good Harry' or the 'I'm so sorry for being a back-stabbing bitch and tying you to the floor, Harry' speech, she just grabbed the left sleeve of his jacket and rolled it up to his shoulder, turning his arm over so that she had access to the underside of his forearm, presenting pale skin.

He got worried when she pulled out her wand, and started chanting in a way that alerted him to the fact that something was Not Right. Or that he was in a Bad Situation, that he would want nothing to do with. When the skin underneath where she was running her wand started to hurt like she was dragging a piece of glass over it, he bit his lip to distract himself and vaguely realised that Lupin was there to hold him down through whatever they were doing.

When Granger didn't stop after a few minutes, and he got a little worried that he could see some black designs appearing on his arm, he turned to Lupin and asked, in a vaguely curious voice that belied none of the pain he was feeling, (something that he'd perfected under his time with the Death Eaters) "Just what is she doing and why?"

Lupin's eyes seemed to communicate many things; a scant bit of it that Harry actually wanted to see, but his tone seemed exasperated, "Harry, Hermione explained why we were doing this just a few minutes ago."

The pain had not abated, but grown just a little worse, although it had nothing on the cruciatus. "Well, why don't you assume that I didn't pay attention to anything she said, and spell it out for me now, kay?"

Lupin sighed and shook his head in a way that told Harry he was amused. "Well, you know about the time travel spell, yeah? Well, we found that there was one glitch about the spell that could have caused problems." Harry forced himself to look mildly curious about the drawbacks of their imagined time travel spell. "Well, the problem was that we could find a way to get a person through, but we couldn't modify it to include things like clothes, or anything else you might bring through – such as money – and it certainly wouldn't be able to keep any disguising spells stable while you travelled through it."

Harry was vaguely concerned about the apparent 'no clothes' rule concerning time travelling, but didn't question it – after all, they were hallucinating the spell, and it could never work. He didn't have to worry about hallucinated drawbacks either. He asked the pertinent question. "So why does it feel like she's cutting glass into my arm?"

"Well," Remus said with far too much cheer, considering they were talking about his pain, "We found a way around that. It was inspired by those muggle things – tattoos – and so we worked this out. It acts as a permanent glamour spell – well, actually it is stronger than that. What Hermione is doing is tweaking parts of your DNA to change your appearance, and tying the spells to a tattoo that she's creating on your arm. It involves runes and such, but that was in the lecture she gave you before. Actually, she's also found a way to get rid of you scar – moving it somewhere in your hair, that is – and some of the rune groups act as a storage device. It is an innovation – there's nothing else like what you have in the world. This way, we'll store some stuff _in_ those designs so you won't be left without anything when you pop out the other side. You can't afford to leave your money sitting around here when you'll need it back there."

Harry blinked, very slowly and deliberately. What. The. Hell.

He clenched his hand, suppressing the instinct to fly off the handle and desperately clutching for whatever insanity had allowed him to keep his cool before this. Even so, he yelled, "WHAT!?"

Granger kept chanting, although she seemed to flinch a bit as he jerked a little before Lupin secured him again. He forced himself not to hyperventilate, and implemented occlumency to calm himself down – whatever the hell they thought they were doing, he had no doubt in his mind that if they managed to fuck up right now, he'd probably die from the backfire. Probably should have listened to the Granger incomprehensible intellectual drone, to have known to at least attempt to get out of this.

Just as suddenly as his anger rose, it settled back down, and he muttered in a detached kind of way, "Oh, you really are insane, aren't you."

Lupin didn't answer, as he seemed to realise this probably wasn't a good time to be convincing about any argument of sanity. Instead, Harry grasped on to one bit of that conversation that his brain had flagged for further inspection, "Wait a second. You said something about my money."

Lupin smiled, and Harry instantly recognised the smile from the days Dumbledore was alive. It was that smile that said, 'I've done what's best for you, but I knew you wouldn't like it so I didn't tell you and now that I have to spill the truth I wish I could run for the hills'.

It was a very communicative smile.

"Well, Harry, when we decided that you were the best choice for sending back in time – after all, you are the best person at adapting to new situations, not to mention that you're prophesised to defeat him and all, we knew you needed to have monetary support to get into the right circles and so fourth. So we kinda… bribedthegoblinsandstoleyourhairtouseinapolyjuicepotiontogetintoyourvaultsandwithdrawallyourmoney."

Harry was vaguely aware that Granger had finished whatever spell work she was doing, but he had gone into lockdown. He knew what he _thought_ Lupin had mumbled really quickly so the words were slurred and it was hard to understand, but he would like to hear it properly. In a deadly tone, he ask/stated, "Rewind, repeat."

Lupin licked his lips nervously and took a few steps away, just barely missing the edges of the designs. He breathed in and out, bracing himself as he said, "Oh, sorry. I just said that we kind of bribed the goblins and stole your hair to use in a polyjuice potion to get into your vaults and withdraw all your money."

In a weird voice, although it was still tightly controlled, Harry said, "That's what I thought you said." He shut his eyes, clenching his jaw as he controlled the immediate rage that flared up at these… people that had wronged him in so many ways. And these were his friends? Well, his enemies were pretty bad too… Oh Lordy just let them get over with whatever they're gonna do.

Harry didn't bother to smile, he scowled at them all through them teaching him how to store stuff in the (permanent) designs that they had tattooed onto him without so much as a by-your-leave. They demonstrated by showing him what was probably a grand trunk, considering it had one of those extra space deals that contained a few fun stuff thrown in, and they said that all his stuff was already stored in that little trunk that, at the moment, was the size and shape of a box of matches.

They also said that one of the compartments held all his money, another held all the books and journals of research that they had all compiled together since their theory-shattering discoveries, and that the library also included a few of the most useful compilations of stuff from Hogwarts, which were made from people going through the books and basically 'cutting and pasting' the helpful stuff into more helpful books, so that nothing stupid was left in. Granger had to be restrained while they were doing it, but on the whole those books had turned out much better than the biased books that are printed in the wizarding world.

There was a lot of stuff and they got him to make up a parseltounge password for the trunk's separate compartments, which afterwards sealed off because of all the newly-developed runes and stuff the spells had been made of, then they put it to a grouping on the tattoo and pressed it to the middle, and he felt the magic that they fed into the design and saw the trunk just disappear. He didn't feel anything, so he assumed that Granger's spell had worked.

Lupin and Granger backed out of the circle, moving to their places in the ring of bystanders. There was one question that he really needed the answer to, though, before they did whatever they were doing. He had no idea what about his appearance Granger had changed, but he wasn't really worried. Hell, if she had gotten rid of his bloody scar, he'd probably allow himself to acknowledge that he was grateful for that, at least. Even if she was participating in whatever they were going to do.

So he asked, "Just why are you doing this? I mean, I'm not unreasonable. I'm sure I could have probably been convinced to do this had you come to me for it…" He didn't bother with adding that they were completely off their rockers, and that he would have most definitely recommended a few mind-healers had they ever suggested something as insane as time travel to him anytime he wasn't tied up in the middle of an I-hate-you circle, where all his apparent traitor 'friends' were pointing wands at him.

They all seemed to adjust their positions, sliding into almost identical postures and wielding their wands in the same way.

Minnie was right in front of his line of view, and he could easily see the smirk on her usually strict features. "Potter, turnabout is fair play. Oh, and Happy Birthday."

Well shit. Seemed like they were taking this as some big joke to get him back for all the grief he'd caused them over the years, Minnie especially. Hmm. He probably should have expected that he'd make them snap some day, and when he did it would somehow come back to bite him in the arse. But somehow, being shoved backwards in time with explicit instructions to murder Voldemort (they were quite insistent on this point of contention) was not how he had imagined that turning out.

Go figure.

And so they started chanting in unison, he thought he caught the Latin word for 'mulligan' and the pretty designs lit up like a Christmas tree, then began spinning around.

Unfortunately, he didn't really get to enjoy the pretty colours, mostly because of the debilitating pain. Yes, surprisingly it can do that. It felt vaguely like being ripped to pieces, joint-by-joint, and then sautéed. And then the people around him… well, they just kind of came apart. You know when you see a piece of knitting and all it takes is to pull on the right string and it will all come undone? Well, he was watching everything around him come undone, just trailing off into the… expanse… and all of a sudden something grabbed him up, and it felt like he was being sat on by Hagrid before he lost consciousness, and the world withered away to nothing.

«•Flashback Ended: Back at the Leaky Cauldron•»

"Hello? Are you alright, Mr Clothing-Is-Optional? You aren't looking too good there."

Harry really had to wonder how his expression looked at that moment, because he felt really weird. Like 'I just found out that my friends snapped and shoved me into a time vortex that sautéed me back x amount of years and dumped me naked in the middle of Diagon Alley' weird.

And let me tell you, that is fairly peculiar.

He shook his head, clutching it as the phantom memory of pain crossed his thoughts, before he focused on the concerned bartender that he now knew not to be a zombie, or an evil twin, or the product of whatever else could bring someone back from the dead – it was really him that was out of place.

Harry looked into the concerned eyes of Tom the bartender, and said the first thing that came to mind.

"I really need a drink."

**«±ΰ±»**

_Well, I hope ya'll enjoy that, just know it's gonna get fun, and be a bit less totally insane in the next few chapters. He he he this is gonna be fun. As far as I know, there are no fics that I've read like what I'm gonna write, and I've read a lot of them. I'd appreciate if you'd review, too._

_-skyflyte12_


	3. Travelling Trivialities

**Exit Stage Left**

••Travelling Trivialities••

…_just what the hell happens now?_

§_Parseltounge_§

So he was a time traveller.

A reluctant one, at that.

Harry briefly wondered if it had ever happened to someone else before he dismissed the thought as pointless.

Having nothing better to do, he sat at the table and chatted to Tom, hearing little tales about how Hogwarts had had a recent vermin problem, which had caused Albus Dumbledore to hang around the Cauldron more than Tom had ever wished. Apparently, the man had tried to start up the 'Cult of Candy', which had somehow eventually resulted in half of Diagon Alley being snowed under by conjured sugar for a few hours and the Aurors that had showed up on the scene being subdued through use of quick-drying Ice Magic. Funnily enough, the Minister seemed all too happy to reinstate Albus as Headmaster after that, if only to avoid the rampant property destruction and the headache it bought him without Albus occupied.

Harry, who had not read the Prophet at all in his second year and guessed that Malfoy may have banned newspapers by that point because he was _sure_ that he would have remembered hearing about Albus doing something as insane as this, (apparently it had happened early 93'), had thoroughly enjoyed the image of Dumbledore on a sugar-high laughing manically while proclaiming the Awesomeness of Candy.

Tom's tone had been ironic as he had said, "Well, that Dumbledore has an incredibly low tolerance for firewhiskey, and with his removal from Hogwarts he was a bit on the blue side so we really should have done something about it in the first place." He grimaced slightly, as if he was remembering the level of chaos caused by the Headmaster.

Tom had continued on to assure Harry that the Union of Wizarding Shops (UWS) had now drawn up an action plan for when something like this happened again.

Harry was beginning to suspect the poor arrangement of unfortunate acronyms was more of a wizard-thing than a strictly Hermione-thing.

That aside, Tom kept telling him little anecdotes about the clientele and other business owners of such-and-such shops, and Harry listened to each story eagerly.

An undeterminable amount of time later, Harry reluctantly stood up from the bar, sheepishly patting down the conjured robes while saying to Tom rather lamely, "Huh, I must have left my money in my other set of conjured robes…"

Toms waved a hand, dismissing Harry's distress over not being able to pay for the meal; "Oh, that's ok, lad, we were all young and stupid once – you mark my words. Really, the story was payment enough." He winked at Harry, rolling his eyes at his own admission.

Harry disagreed, "Nah, Tom – I'll tell you what. I'll go and get some money out of Gringotts, and pay you for the breakfast along with perhaps renting a room for a few weeks?"

Tom smiled and nodded, "Ok, that will be fine – here, let me just go get the book."

Tom bustled away, waving his wand negligently at the dirty plates that had been sat in front of Harry, taking them with him. Harry tapped his fingers against the table impatiently for a few seconds before Tom reappeared with his log book.

Harry could see the charms and spells that ensured people used their legal names and felt a little nervous, but decided he'd just laugh off the fact that his name was the same as the Boy-Who-Lived… 'terrible annoyance, I tell you; whenever I say my name, people shout "Where?!" should be a good enough excuse… hopefully.

Tom handed him a quill and inkpot (dammit, he was going to carry around a _pen_ when he wasn't wearing conjured robes) so he picked it up and signed 'Harry James Potter' without a second thought, mostly so he couldn't talk himself out of it.

In that moment, he was relieved that Tom was on the other side of the bar talking a lunch order.

This was because his ink was moving and rearranging letters, squirming around in a way bizarrely reminiscent of ferret Draco right after being fished out of Crabbe's pants. When it stopped moving, his eyebrows climbed towards his hairline, for the spells and charms that ensured real names were used apparently decided that his name was Daniel Harrison Bennett.

Well what do you know?

Apparently, Hermione had worked in a fresh name for him… although how she came to Daniel Bennett would be something he'd never guess at. Besides the fact that it had no possible relation to 'Harry Potter', of course.

Which, now he thought about it, was a Good Thing.

Who would be stupid enough to go back in time with a name like, oh say 'James Evans'? It would be a huge _stupid_ clue to people who might catch on that there was something strange about him to look at and go '_James_ Potter, Lily _Evans_; oh, he could be their future kid that time travelled to defeat a Dark Lord!'

Well maybe not, but there was still the _possibility_; after all, he wouldn't put it past Dumbledore to make that strange leap of logic.

Harry, newly christened Daniel, sighed and ran an agitated hand through his perpetually messy hair. Oh. Hermione hadn't been able to beat the Potter hair into submission.

Well, better women than she had probably tried and failed that insurmountable task as well.

Hmm, he really should find a mirror somewhere, if only to know what he looked like now.

Ah, well.

Tom was suddenly at his elbow, (he really was a short man) and he looked at the book before exclaiming, "Thankyou, Mr. Bennett, for your business on this fine morning. It has been a pleasure, and you can pay for the room and meal tonight when you get back."

Harry/Daniel quirked a grin and shook Tom's hand, saying, "No, thankyou, Tom – and please call me Daniel."

Tom nodded, and Daniel (he really should refer to himself as such lest he forget) moved towards the Diagon Alley entrance point.

Standing in the small space with only the bin for company, instead of tapping the brick and entering the wizarding center he waved his hand and transfigured the conjured robe into jeans and a long-sleeved shirt before blinking away, decidedly not towards Gringotts Bank.

**«±ΰ±»**

Daniel arrived a bare second later in a place he knew well – the park in Little Whinging. Blinking the spots out of his eyes, he looked around to see if there was anyone around that he'd have to obliviate (fortunately no one was) before strolling over to a nearby bench to take a seat.

He rolled up the arm of his shirt and examined his recently reluctantly-acquired tattoo in the light. Now, without the panic of the realisation that his friends had turned on him and snapped, he could recognise the straight line of a mixture of kanji, hiragana and katakana script scrawled in a vertical line from the underside of his wrist to his elbow. That was about all he understood about it; a few months ago (or was it now years in the future?) Hermione had discovered that Japanese script was extremely well-suited for small rune-workings and had almost over dosed on potions for memory retention, elevation and comprehension in order to learn the language quickly so that she could play around with it.

It was a very scary few weeks, accompanied by an even scarier Hermione.

But enough about his scary intellectual traitor/friend; he pulled up her instructions on how to work the designs via occlumency (wizard's way to cheat memory recall) and moved to focus on one symbol that meant 'storage'.

Very original, magic is.

And if you didn't catch the sarcasm in that last sentence, then you have a very dull future of being unable to interpret sarcasm, one of the four essentials for a humour-filled existence. Pity for you.

He frowned and tilted his head, tapping the small design with a touch of magic, mentally congratulating himself when it glowed a little. He hissed the password, §_you're insane_§ (hey, he'd been under duress at the time!) and wasn't particularly surprised when it worked like it should have; it always did when Hermione invented it.

He now had in his possession a little trunk the size of a box of matches.

Now, the magic that he had performed thus far wasn't all that noticeable or flashy, but he'd bet his left hand that somebody would grow suspicious if they saw him resize the trunk and walk into it.

So he did the responsible thing; he looked around the park (which was still empty) before he got up off the bench and skulked behind the bushes so he could use them as an (admittedly pitiful) cover.

Declaring himself in the clear he dropped the trunk, enlarging it in mid air. He absently saw the initials D.H.B embossed on the lid, but ignored thinking about his new name by touching a finger to the letter 'D', which glowed softly as he heard a lock unclick and saw the lid pop open, kind of like when you open the boot of a car.

Daniel grabbed the lid and pushed it up all the way, only a little put out to see it held his clothes (and shoes) neatly folded into sections which he could tell made use of the apparent extra size (hard to guess how much) of the compartment. With a quick switching spell, he put on proper clothes (it was never a good idea to wear conjured items because of a few drawbacks, namely the danger of the magic running out and leaving the unwary starkers; not to forget the fairly high risk of being hit with a Reversing charm in the wizarding world; it was apparently one of the top 3 most used spells, according to the Bureau of Utilitarian Magic Sector) before closing the lid on the boring compartment.

He repeated the unlocking action, this time pressing the 'H' on the lid, and opened it only to look down at a row of books. He scowled; why hadn't they given him anything _interesting_?

Oh, he forgot that Hermione 'Being Expelled is Worse than Death' Granger put it together.

Of course it wouldn't be cool.

He only kept the lid open long enough to see the catalogue sheet stuck to the bottom of the lid (it worked a lot like an electronic search-engine, only with the books inside) before he shut it and opened up the third and last compartment via the letter 'B'. This one proved to be a bit more interesting.

Daniel gazed down into the trunk with something akin to suspicion – who knew what they had booby trapped the thing with?

In only a few seconds (pretty much his attention span for suspicion) his curiosity got the better of him and he carefully moved so that he could get onto the vertical ladder that was apparently the entrance.

The moment his feet hit the floor, the light blinked on (yes, singular) and he found himself in a roughly rectangular room of about 2x5 metres.

Well. Not exactly what he'd imagined when they said the trunk had a "room in a compartment".

Sigh. He should have guessed.

It was Spartan in design; all it had was a bed that was obviously made to fit only one person, as well as a desk against the opposite wall. The only other thing in the room was some kind of box in the corner that looked vaguely like a mini-fridge and was actually something that he recognised as the wizard-version of a refrigerator; it had spells to keep food edible for up to ten times longer, was able to hold _a lot_ more than it should, had lightening charms so it was easy to move around and was powered by a kind of magical battery that the wizard had to keep charged.

Daniel felt that if wizards went camping, this would be what they'd take in the place of an esky. Of course they wouldn't, so he guessed it didn't matter either way.

Getting back to the room. Or should he call it _his_ room? Maybe he didn't want to.

The trunk-room didn't really have anything else; just one large window that covered a whole side of the longer stretch of wall and was obviously enchanted (it had a lovely view of some beach) and that was pretty much it.

Oh, there was also one door that he discovered led only to a very small room that contained a toilet and some shelves, which didn't have anything on them, either.

Obviously the room was very basic, and was to be used as a last resort for when he couldn't find anywhere else to stay.

Daniel scowled and sunk down on the (admittedly comfortable) bed. Only Hermione could design a boring room in something as cool as a secret compartment that you could carry around with you.

She may as well have just nicked the Weasley's cat-smelling tent and shoved it in his trunk.

…Or not, because he wasn't sure he was _that_ ungrateful that his trunk-room at least didn't come with a non-negotiable odour.

Something yellow caught his eye, and he dragged himself off the bed (ok, maybe Hermione didn't do _that_ bad a job) and moved over to the desk.

On it was a little post-it.

Written on the post-it, in Hermione's handwriting, were the words 'Check the draws, idiot.'

No joking – Hermione had called him an idiot of a piece of stationary.

Fantastic.

Big breath in, big breath out; relax your mind, do not let the anger control you, you control the anger.

Or at least that had been what his fifth (consecutive) occlumency teacher told him worked to 'calm your mind'. He was fairly cynical about whether it worked or not, but it _had_ stopped him from blowing up the Room of Requirement when it had sent him a note saying 'plan more, stupid' just before it dumped a pile of books literally on top of his head, all related to survival in bizarre situations.

He would still rather roll over for Voldemort than admit that those insanely bizarre spells had come in handy, _especially_ the one about turning rocks into marshmallows (don't ask).

He scrunched up the post-it and threw it over his shoulder before going for the top drawer.

In it were a few things that he was sure she'd never have given him had she known she'd be around afterwards - it was all the stuff that they'd stolen off him over the years for the "continued existence of the universe, Mr. Potter, and for Merlin's sake get your hand out of that!"

On the top was his 'Codex of Ward Cracking' (self-written from his work breaking into DE homes and possible Tosser bases) along with a 'Complete Compendium of Weasley's Wonderful Pranks and how to Make Them'. Next was an object of his own creation, the 'Do-it Bot', which was really just an animated toy robot that, when told "do it" would go off like a police siren while running around like Dobby on a punishment kick. Quite explosive, if he said so himself – he'd had that taken when he accidentally set it off in McGonagall's office and (somehow) caused a minor earthquake in the Forbidden Forest which had (by a completely innocent coincidence that was in no way his fault) been the main precursor of the Great Centaur Incident.

But it is better not to think of the Centaur Incident and how they had come to the (misguided and baseless) conclusion that the World was Ending and in result somehow caused the fiery destruction of a good ¼ of the forest in their drunken revelry (he had come to believe that _centaurs_ and _alcohol_ should never be uttered in the same sentence, let alone be together in reality).

Of course, that day had put the Fear of McGonagall into him; to this day he would rather sit through a Percy Weasley cauldron-bottom thickness lecture or pry his eyes out with a spork than cross Minerva McGonagall.

He believed it was the suppressed sadism that came from dealing with Dumbledore on a close basis for nigh on sixty years that gave her the freaking horrifying weapon that was Her Anger.

And yes, it most definitely deserves capital letters. Her Wrath would also be an apt description, and all joking aside, it was past the upper-Voldemort echelons of 'thou-shalt-not-speak-its-name' fear.

But he was still happy to have his do-it bot back.

After those, there were other pieces of junk, a few beach-balls-in-a-bottle (they really were quite handy) and even a spare pair of prank-wings, the joke being that they actually worked (and were especially hilarious when one stuck them on a pig and allowed muggles to see the result… not that he did that, because that would be a breach of the Statue of Secrecy, and breaking the law is Wrong).

At the back he could see a rectangular locked box which was about the size of an A5 piece of paper, although in 3D. There was a post-it on that as well, and he pulled the box out and put it on the desk.

This note said 'Put hand on lid' so he did so, which made the box click open. It was obviously charmed to be bottomless, and he moved it around a bit so he could read the larger note stuck to the bottom of the lid. It went:

_Dear Harry (or I suppose Daniel would be more appropriate now),_

_In this box is all the money that we removed from your vaults. Really, we didn't steal anything, although it was surprising to us that the goblins weren't all that sorry to see us stealing your stuff (really, what did you do to that dragon, Harry? They were quite vehemently against you, and I don't remember you mentioning that you did anything else that could have offended the entire Goblin Nation recently). _

_Do try not to Potter it up, yeah? We sent you back in time with enough things to ensure money would be no object, and as long as you don't offend anyone (or at least until you have some kind of backup to get you _out_ of it, please) this should work. _

_All the books that we could get our hands on (that weren't complete fiction) we put in your library, and I guess you've already seen that it's in the second compartment._

_Anyway, under this note is an enchanted piece of paper that will show the amount of money left and keep track of your spending in this deposit box, and in there is a leather wallet that we've linked to the box so you can get money out without carrying this thing around. We've also left instructions on how to change passwords and set up the wallet so it won't be stolen or opened by anyone else, so please look at that first. _

_Well, we hope you enjoy this second chance; good luck, Harry._

_With Love, All those from 'That Castle'_

**«±ΰ±»**

Daniel didn't stick around his small boring trunk-room for long after that; just long enough to grab the wallet and fix the spells on it before scampering back up the ladder and into the (mercifully deserted) park.

He quickly shrunk the trunk and put it back inside the weird tattoo on his arm. It was then, standing in the Little Whinging park, that he realised he had absolutely nothing to do.

It was funny really; he'd actually been able to ignore the fact that he had _nothing_ to do in this time with smaller trivialities such as hearing about the miserable rise and fall of the Cult of Candy, and then being worried about having to use the name 'Harry Potter', and more recently digging around the trunk that had been packed by his friend/traitors for his crazy fall through time.

It was this that made him realise, in turn, that there were really only two options for what he would do in the future.

Option A was to be a good little time traveller and stay out of situations that could result in the unravelling of the universe as he knew it. This would undoubtedly include staying away from his younger-self and keeping out of all the fun.

Yeah, right.

Of course, Option B was to pretty much just do whatever the hell he wanted, to ignore the laws of time travel and to run the risk of extremely changing the timeline and ending up right back where he started.

Well, there never really was a chance of him being a good little law abider, and he didn't think his mini-me would want to kill him because he would probably be unrecognisable (what with being older and all) so that wasn't really an issue, and the whole 'ruin my chance at knowing what's happening' didn't really apply to him either because if it just turned out how it was before then being tossed through time would have been a moot point, right?

So it was decided! He'd just do whatever he felt like doing at the time, damn the consequences, and hope it would lead to the destruction of the Tosser and not the universe… well, that's about what he'd been doing in the future before this little involuntary 'Voldie-hunting' time-trip anyway.

Well, that little decision helped him in the long run, but not so much in the way of immediate goals.

Meh, he'd think about it later – he had to go pay back Tom now anyhow.

**«±ΰ±»**

_Well guys, that it for now, I like reviews and I hope you enjoyed it; Skyflyte12._

_Oh, and if you didn't get the kinda slanted joke about UWS, I meant that if said aloud it would be pronounced 'ewes', which is the name for a female sheep. Funny, no?_


	4. Daniel Doubled

**Exit Stage Left**

•• Daniel Doubled ••

§_Parseltounge_§

It was pretty dark by the time he'd gotten back to the Leaky Cauldron, mainly because he'd decided to 'muggle it' by catching a bus into London before walking the rest of the way to Charing Cross.

He wasn't exactly sure _why_ he did it, other than the fact that he hated relying on magic too much (_he_ exercised, unlike 96% of the magical population of Britain) and it was kind of strange to see the city without all the changes and updates that had been made to it by his time – hell, he didn't actually think it had changed all that much, but he'd been proven wrong before.

Wait a second. Was it even proper to call when he had come from 'his time'? It wasn't like he had a monopoly on living in that year – if anything, he'd label it 'Tosser's Time' because of how much Tommy seemed to have been enjoying his power trip.

Hmm. Actually, since (as far as he knew) he was the only one 'from the future' as it were, he would just call it 'his time' and not bother about the legitimacy or semantics of using such a label.

Daniel distractedly pushed open the door to the old pub, deciding that he'd been far too distractible lately; his thoughts had been trailing off on tangents, mostly about his past experiences and he had only just realised this. Hmm. It must be a side-effect of that time travel chanting/voodoo thingy.

Thanks, traitor/friends; the thing that he'd always wanted was to remember a lot of his mistakes and crazy past adventures while trying to remain inconspicuous and fit into… err, what year was it anyway?

Dammit.

He'd been more affected than he thought. He vaguely remembered asking Tom, but for the life of him couldn't recall it.

Some wizard/soldier thingy he was.

Damn. His thoughts were all muddled; he was actually appalled that he didn't notice the weird affect the travel had on his thoughts before now – they sure were all over the place, and had been all day, now that he thought about it. Hopefully after he got a bit of sleep his brain would correct itself.

Hopefully? Hey, he was an optimistic kinda guy… sometimes. Occasionally. Maybe.

Ok, so he just didn't want to deal with it via occlumency – as far as he was concerned, occlumency was an art concocted by an evil, evil demon and should never have been forced upon the minds of the innocent.

Yes, he really hated occlumency – with the passion of a thousand burning suns (plus one) – partly because he sucked at it and partly because it proved that he was in some ways a 'freak'. STOP. Thoughts. Dammit. Stupid weird side-effects of a stupid chanting-ritual thingy.

The Leaky Cauldron had a nice ambience; there were a few groups of wizards/witches scattered around, enjoying their meals, as well as the odd werewolf (not that it was obvious).

Even if the pub was a little on the 'medieval' side (what with candles as the main lighting source) it was still nice enough, especially now that he didn't have to be worried about being besieged by excitable people wanting to shake the hand of a famous person (or get a piece for bragging rights).

There _was_ the fact that he was the only one there wearing 'muggle' clothes, meaning that he just about had the subtlety of a hippogriff dancing the can-can, but that didn't matter; he was used to being some kind of flame to their moth, and didn't care about their sideways condescending stares.

Bah! Really, he'd dealt with worse than that at the beginning of his _first year_, from his peers no-less. They also couldn't hold a candle to Snape. Or worse yet, McGonagall.

Daniel paused and looked over his shoulder nervously, _just in case_ thinking _her_ name could, in fact, summon her.

Fortunately, it looked like he was safe… this time.

Of course, that could have something to do with the fact that Minnie had no idea who he was at the moment, and thus wouldn't think it important to show up just to scare him.

Hey, wait a second!

Daniel hit himself over the head and muttered something unpleasant about stupid mind-muddling rituals before making his way over to the bar, where Tom (the bartender, not the dark dude) was currently positioned.

"Hey Tom!" Daniel greeted jovially, like he wasn't suffering from an over abundance of weird mind-ranting/reminiscing.

Tom looked a bit on the frazzled side, but still grinned when he saw the strange young man that had been unfortunately left naked in the middle of Diagon Alley early that morning. "Why, hello, Daniel. Feeling better now?"

Daniel caught the jibe at his earlier fabricated hangover-slash-naked stint and chuckled sheepishly, running a hand through his tangled hair (again), "Yes, much better thank-you. Anyway, I thought it was about time to get back here now that I got some money, not to mention I'd like something for dinner, my good man. How much do I owe you for the room and everything?"

Tom gave him the price and galleons exchanged hands, with Daniel including a tip 'for the extra help' that morning, before moving on to order some food. It wasn't too much later that he had a plate of something the old man had recommended, and he pulled up next to one of the wolves (coincidently) before digging into his meal.

The guy glanced at him weirdly for a moment before shrugging it off and going back to talk t his friends.

It was about then that the door from the direction of the Alley banged open and a pompous, chubby man strode in looking very self-important, with one of the kiss-arse types at his elbow, practically fawning over him with that 'you are greater than the invention of electricity' glint in his eyes. Or wands, since wizards wouldn't know electricity if they stumbled into a livewire.

Conversations trailed off for the moment it took for everyone to swing around and glance at the loud opening of the door before most conversations started back up again.

Daniel saw the glint in the pompous man's eyes that said he was an attention whore – thus the loud entrance – and scanned the faces of the others in the pub, seeing expressions varying from disgust to (unfortunately) that sheep-look of awe that some hold when meeting a 'famous' person, no matter how stupid they look in real life.

The pudgy man strode purposefully over to the barman and made a show of whispering instructions into his ear (even if, by the look on the faces closest to him, he was easily overheard) before he shooed the elbow-man away and was led away, in turn, by Tom to one of the private meeting rooms off to the side.

Unfortunately, that pompous, pudgy, self-important specimen was England's Minister of Magic, Cornelius 'bowler hat' Fudge.

Daniel grimaced and tried to ignore the fact that the majority of conversations were now focused on that stupid man, whether to call him derogatory names and scowl over his latest blunder or to *shudder* _praise_ him.

It really didn't bear thinking about just where those people's brains had run off to.

A few moments after leading Fudge out of the room, Tom exited before hurrying over to the bar and gathering up a plate of various sweets along with bottles of firewhiskey and butterbeer, which he then took back into the room that Fudge was no doubt setting up to give the appearance that he was working hard.

There was something about this situation that tugged at Daniel's memory, and his eyebrows drew together as he frowned, wondering just what about this could possibly be familiar – after all, Fudge had cut and run even before the Tosser invaded the ministry, leaving it in more of a mess than usual before they could choose another minister.

The 'muggle' entrance of the pub opened, and his eyes travelled to it automatically scanning the entrant before going back to his food, but doing a double-take instead.

Standing there awkwardly in the doorway of the Leaky Cauldron, looking like a half-drowned cat with his hair plastered to his face and over-large clothes dragging down from the weight of water, no doubt from the rain outside, was no one other than Daniel's mini-me, Harry Potter.

With a trained eye Daniel, for the first time, saw how he appeared from another person's point of view and was frankly surprised that he'd been capable of moving about, let alone dragging the dead-weight of that trunk around like he remembered from his own little escape from the Dursley's before his Third year. This was an extremely bony 13-year-old, obviously without anywhere else to go.

He really looked rather pathetic, and Daniel wondered for a moment how _anyone_ had wanted to be taught DADA by him in his 5th year, let alone do what he said while he looked like he'd just escaped from an orphanage. Harry looked like a strong breeze would bowl him over at any moment, yet Daniel remembered very clearly conning Remus into teaching him – that kid – to defend himself against nightmares such as dementors.

In all rights, the adults should have been giving him counselling and pumping him up with nutrient potions before he did what his skinny frame was threatening and just plain vanished away.

Of course, since that kid was him, it felt really weird to be objectively giving that assessment, but still! Tiny!

Tom rushed up to Daniel's mini-me and said something in a hushed voice that made poor Harry go white. He then beckoned Harry towards the room that Fudge now frequented and little Harry shuffled after the bartender, looking very much like a man going to the gallows.

To Daniel it was hilarious, in a that-was-me-but-now-isn't kind of way; especially because he knew Harry was going in there thinking he was getting expelled from Hogwarts for blowing up Marge. Heh, he should have gotten a medal for that particular act of accidental magic.

Ah, good times.

Of course Daniel may have felt guilty about taking enjoyment in how scared his mini-me was, but considering it had been him the first time (and _technically_ was him now) he didn't.

He wasn't really surprised when no-one in the bar shouted 'Harry Potter!' when mini-me appeared, mainly because no one would connect the orphanage escapee with a boy-hero like 'Harry Potter'.

Really, 'Harry Potter' was more like a merchandise logo; a name attached to an unfortunate individual that wanted nothing to do with it.

Which was probably why Daniel had accepted his change in name so easily in the first place.

Really other people, _normal_ people, would probably be appalled at the stripping of something so important, so integral to ones identity, but Daniel had built himself since childhood to be distant from 'Harry Potter'; it was just another label, one that he had not wanted to deal with and had almost been his undoing.

Daniel blinked and scowled again. Bloody stupid ritual thingy. It was really distracting him a lot.

He wasn't usually like this… much.

Maybe it had something to do with being in the past.

Perhaps

He was finished his meal by the time Harry was pulled out of his chat with Fudge and made to trail along behind Tom (like a little lost puppy) and up the staircase to a room that had no doubt been paid for by Fudge in his attempt to suck up to he Boy-Who-Lived.

Well, at least now Daniel knew it was 1993, and about a month before Hogwarts started back up.

Well, at least he didn't actually have to _buy_ a Daily Propaganda to find out the year.

Daniel rolled his shoulders ignoring the soft cracks that issued as he did so before pulling himself to his feet and shuffling off to that same staircase.

He climbed it and found the room he had been issued, fishing out the key from his pocket he unlocked the door and stumbled in.

It was dark, but after a few steps the globe attached to the ceiling glowed white, lighting up the room.

It was nothing special; his trunk-room used the same method of lighting and he knew it to be powered by the room's occupant, leeching magic to work.

He pulled off his shirt and threw it away, feeling a little weird to not have a bag to stash somewhere thanks to those tattoos.

He would have gone to bed then, but something from the corner glinted and caught his eye.

Too used to impending assassination attempts (his average was three per week, which he was bizarrely proud of) and being on a hair-trigger, he approached it cautiously but rolled his eyes at his own foolishness as he discovered it was only a mirror, just like in every other guest room at the Cauldron.

But seeing the mirror there had not only triggered his deep-seated paranoia, but also reminded him that he didn't actually know what he looked like as 'Daniel Bennet', which roused his curiosity.

He was kind of let down when he saw himself. Same scars, bar the lightning one; same height (which was mercifully above average, thanks to his cheating with a (very painful) kinda-but-not-quite illegal growth potion over a few consecutive months) and he couldn't spot any changes in his face or anything.

Actually, the only change to his appearance was that his hair was now dark-brown, still messy and still going in different directions at different lengths. The other change was his eyes. Instead of the avada kedavra green eyes that he had boasted, they were now blue. Well, not a _normal_ blue; they were that really pale blue that made them look like ice or made a person think of seeing a ghost (at least in the muggle world). They had the same slightly luminous quality that his eyes had held before, and there was no other colour to dilute the blue – no doubt they would be shocking at first glance, just as his eyes had been before once he'd gotten rid of the dorky glasses.

He didn't really know how he felt about that particular change. As a teenager, they had been his only tangible connection to the woman that had given him life. Of course, now he knew better; after seeing and comparing himself to a picture of James Potter, there were very noticeable differences that had probably not been commented on before because he'd only met people who had been _trying_ to see his father in his features, and thus the instant 'you look like your father but' speech he'd gotten so many time in his youth.

Well, he supposed his was _still_ young (especially compared to a wizarding lifespan) but mentally he felt _older_.

Well, there really was nothing for it; Hermione had made the change permanent and he'd learnt to be adaptable – he'd get over it.

It was actually kinda cool; he felt like he was some spy in a James Bond film or something – what with all the cool new stuff and changed name and appearance.

"Well, deary, you look very handsome, but don't you think it's about time to go to sleep now?"

Daniel jerked and cursed under his breath as he instinctively jumped away from the thrice damned mirror, eyeing it warily for a moment before scowling. "Stupid imprinted consciousness mirrors."

He huffed and waved a hand, conjuring a blanket which he used to cover the damn thing (they creeped him out) before he turned away from it and looked thoughtfully around the room, yawning.

He made a negligent gesture, erecting wards more through habit than necessity, before toeing off his shoes and slipping into the four poster bed.

**«±ΰ±»**

_Yo guys :) _

_Well, this wasn't all I was planning to write for this chapter, but I decided that since I couldn't really bring myself to write the rest I'd just post it and people would be happy to get something to read. _

_Oh oh, did you know I've had someone cast aspersions on my mental state? Cos I have, and for some strange reason this makes me feel inordinately proud of myself. Of course, I have also had a picnic on my high school's roof, so I guess I should have expected it sooner or later :) _

_Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this, I love reviews (hint hint) and I will aspire t get the next chapter out ASAP (which knowing me could be anywhere in the region of a week from now to a few months, so don't hold your breath, ok?)_

_To all and sundry I say ciao,_

_skyflyte12  
_


	5. Strange Strangers

**Exit Stage Left**

•• Strange Strangers ••

_Like really, really strange._

_§Parseltounge§_

_(Muttering under breath)_

* * *

Harry Potter was having the best morning that he'd had in his life, ever.

Which wasn't exactly saying much, considering the Dursleys and stuff, but still…

The novel experience of being able to wake up in a comfortable bed and _know_ that there wasn't anyone around that was going to be demanding his attention and making him get up was soo good that he just took a moment to stare up at the ceiling sleepily and sink back down into the sheets.

He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, relaxing further and taking the moment to get his thoughts in order. For the first time in his memory he was free – free of his relatives, free of being watched and told what to do at every moment of the day, free to just enjoy having a peaceful holiday where the only rule was to avoid the muggle world, which was something that he didn't really have any complaints about considering that in the two years he'd been in the Wizarding World he'd never gotten the chance to really explore Diagon Alley… he was also looking forward to the chance to get his homework done for once without having to worry about getting ink stains on the sheets because his relatives couldn't know that he was _practising magic_, ignoring the fact that he really _wasn't_ because there were laws against doing that over the holidays anyways.

He heard a tapping noise and sat up, rubbing his eyes and fumbling for his glasses (which were on the nightstand) before searching for the origin of the sound.

"Just a second, Hedwig." He mumbled, springing out of bed and to the window that he hadn't noticed the night before in his haze of sleepiness and turned the catch, allowing the owl to fly into the room and receiving a cuff over the head with a wing for his trouble.

"Sorry girl." He said to his owl contritely, eyeing her regal posture on the perch as she snubbed him in a very un-owlish way …just in case she decided that he needed a few beak marks to go with it as punishment for shutting her out (never mind that he _didn't_, or at least didn't think he did).

Harry rubbed his head and sighed, deciding that since he was now out of bed he may as well go and take care of his stomach (which was loudly making it known that it didn't appreciate the meagre rations he'd gotten the last couple of weeks) and so he rummaged around in his trunk for something that was at least half-way decent, and only coming up with and old pair of Dudley's jeans that had a large hole on one knee and had to be cinched up by a belt with a large t-shirt that he'd gotten anonymously for Christmas (he'd gotten a few gifts that way, and the Weasley twins were always teasing him about having 'secret admirers' and a 'fan club' …both of which possible outcomes being very disturbing to him, so he preferred not to think about it).

He grabbed the sack of wizarding money that he'd received last year (it was getting pretty light, so he'd have to go refill it later) and put it in his pocket, casting one last glance back at Hedwig, who had shifted around so her back was to him by now, before he opened the door to the landing.

Glancing out and checking that no one was there, (a habit formed from living with Dursleys) after being satisfied that the coast was clear he moved out of the room, carefully locking the door behind him. He took the stairs lightly, not wanting to disturb anyone else and more than a little nervous now with approaching his first encounter of Diagon Alley unaccompanied – what if he was mobbed like the first time but with no Hagrid to keep them away?

With this in mind, he smoothed his fringe over his scar automatically and paused before he reached the end of the landing, hearing the sounds of quiet talking and eating.

Mentally berating himself for being nervous over something as silly as this, he walked out into the bar and looked around. No one was glancing his way (thankfully) as they all seemed to be intent on their own conversations to care about his entrance, and although he felt a little silly because of his clothes choice (he was the _only_ _one_ wearing muggle clothes, making him stand out quite a bit) and was thinking seriously about going back and trading his clothes for his school robes – at least he _was_, before a shout caught his attention; "Harry! Yeah, Harry, come over 'ere!"

It was Tom the bartender motioning at him from the bar, grinning from ear-to-ear and flagging him down, preventing his escape back into the safety of his rooms. Harry inwardly cringed at the man's attention-grabbing hail but consoled himself with the fact that the man hadn't mentioned his last name – he didn't want to get stared at like some zoo exhibit during breakfast on his first day of being free.

"Alright Harry?"

Harry blinked and smiled more naturally at the honest smile on the man's face and nodded, "Yeah. It's just… a little overwhelming, I guess."

Tom nodded, "Ah, you'll get used to it lad. Now, what did you want for breakfast?"

"Umm… bacon and eggs, I guess. Thankyou, sir."

"It's no problem lad! I'll go get those for you – and please, call me Tom."

Harry was left alone at the counter where Tom and seated him, bored now that he wasn't worrying about his reception. He resorted to looking around at the groups huddled around tables to cure this boredom, and finding that there wasn't really anything interesting happening, his mind drifted.

His food arriving, having been levitated and set in front of him fairly loudly, startled him out of his odd state and he stared at it stupidly for a few moments (it was a really _large_ plate, and he was kinda intimidated by the amount of food Tom thought he could eat) before he managed to shake off his daze and pick up the utensils, digging in and finding out that it tasted brilliantly.

"I'll have what he's having."

Harry glanced back almost involuntarily from hearing a voice so close behind him, and furrowed his brows when he saw the man behind him, pointing at his barely-eaten meal while talking to Tom. The man was tall, especially when compared to the short bartender. The wizard had hair as messy as his own, only it was dark brown and longer than Harry's had even been. He was wearing muggle clothes as well, making Harry feel better about his clothes choice, and had pale blue eyes that seemed to sparkle in good humour. Harry found himself likening the man to the twins – they had the same kind of air about them – easy-going, good humoured and friendly, which admittedly put him at ease when, a moment later, the man pulled up the seat right next to him.

The man was talking, and Harry got the distinct impression that he was talking to _him_, although he didn't really know what he'd done to warrant hearing about the man's misadventures with what sounded like a very confused jarvey having a confrontation with a phoenix, that apparently had a hat and a pencil as weapons and an 'epic battle' had ensued… and he was really lost by this point, because he had no idea what a 'jarvey' was and he didn't know of any phoenix besides Fawkes although there had to be one, somewhere). He waited for some kind of introduction, or confirmation that the brunette was talking to him. Upon coming to the realisation that the man wasn't going to introduce himself, he (as politely as possible mind you) took the initiative, cutting off the man's rant; "Erm, excuse me sir… but… Who are you?"

The man didn't answer (but he did stop talking, and Harry found this a good trade-off), and he was completely confused because the man seemed to be just staring blankly at a spot past his head – possibly thinking about something. Harry waited a bit awkwardly for a few moments, when the man seemed to snap out of whatever trance he'd been in and questioned; "Er, what was that again?"

Harry felt a little bit silly, so he just kind of shook his head and turned back to his meal, deciding that it had been a stupid idea to talk to the person that had sat down beside him and talked at him and resolved to try and eat as quickly as possible to avoid as much awkwardness as possible.

It wasn't to be, because before he could go back to his meal, Harry found a hand presented to him; "Name's Daniel."

"…Harry." He answered after a moment, figuring it couldn't hurt to at least be civil to the man and accepted the hand, half-glad that he hadn't been snubbed. He turned back to his meal, while the man – Daniel – seemed to lounge on his seat, ruffling the back of his hair in a casual gesture and glancing around at the patrons of the bar.

"So, kid, whatcha doin' all alone in a dive like this – oh, er, no offence Mr. Tom Barman Sir… heh heh…"

Harry pretended to scratch his nose so he could hide his smile from the man next to him as he playfully cowered from the glaring Tom, who had whacked the brunette mid-sentence on the back of the head as he passed by.

"I meant…" Daniel continued in a placating tone, his hands spread wide in front of him comically, "that such a young kid probably shouldn't be without his parents and/or guardians in a public area. What are you; ten?"

Harry found himself bristling and gritting his teeth at the implied insult – in no way did he look _ten_! Sure, he was a bit shorter than the other boys in his year (and a lot shorter than Ron, but the Weasley's _had_ to have some giant blood in there somewhere) but he didn't look _ten_! "I. Am. _Thirteen_."

"Thirteen? Are you sure?" Daniel asked obnoxiously, and Harry glared at the brunette man sitting beside him upon seeing the disbelieving look on his face.

"Yes." He stated stiffly. It was weird – he was used to people singling him out and being picked on, but his height hadn't been attacked since he'd been in primary school and Dudley's Gang has been after him. He'd gotten used to being sneered at for things that he didn't quite understand – like being a parseltounge, or being famous, or about his parents or friends – not once had his appearance been mentioned aside from the occasional remark on his scar or glasses by Malfoy. So the insult had gotten under his skin more than he would have liked.

"Sure sure?" the man prodded, and Harry tried to emulate Snape's Glare of Annoyance. He'd noticed that the professor seemed to have different glares to convey different emotions, but he'd never actually tried one out for size.

From the twitching of the man's lips, it didn't work well. Daniel's light blue eyes were laughing at him, and he attempted to batt away the playful hand that was ruffling his hair, "Stop it!"

"Sorry, sorry!" The man laughed, allowing his hand to be dislodged, "Oh, you're just soo cute! It's too much, it's too much!" and Harry thought he was muttering something about a kitten that he decided not to interpret – he'd really rather not know.

He shifted backwards a bit, wary of a repeat attack and rapidly coming to the conclusion that this 'Daniel' was strange – although he couldn't shake just how strongly the man reminded him of the twins in that moment, with that gesture of good humour.

…He'd never met a person quite like Daniel – _that_ he could conclude after spending a further five minutes with the man, who was now in the process of acting more like a kid on a sugar rush than any adult he'd ever met.

Daniel was laughing in his seat, one hand resting on the bench in front of him, the other clutching his fork, which was waving about as the man had started relating a story about a half-kneazle his friend had owned and how the cat had tried to smother him in his sleep because he had charmed it purple with orange polkadots. He hadn't thought that was possible, and couldn't help but be dubious over whether a cat could premeditate homicide at all …but he couldn't help finding the tale funny nether-the-less, and found himself riveted to the wizard's retaliatory anti-mouse ward cast on the cat. He decided that he'd be willing to let the comment about his height and age slide by the time Daniel's demeanour changed mid-sentence; "…so I spent three weeks watching out for guerrilla attacks from the kneazle's recruited army of all the other cats in the school, but where was your guardian again?"

He almost chocked on his eggs at the change – it came out of nowhere, and why did Daniel – who was practically a stranger (he didn't even know the man's last name yet!) – think it was his place to poke into his business? But Daniel was in the process of staring him down, and Harry wondered distantly why he hadn't noticed just how _strange_ the man's eyes were before now – strange and scary, but a different scary from Snape or even McGonagall – the blue was so light and piercing that they were kind of creepy, and even though he couldn't understand why, he answered the man honestly. "Um… Oh, I'm on my own."

"On your own?" Daniel echoed while Harry was busy mentally wondering just why he'd answered, and honestly, at that. "Kid, you're _thirteen_. It's illegal for you to be on your own without a guardian of some kind."

The voice carried the same tone that he remembered from Hermione when she pointed out the Cerberus was guarding a trap door – you know, the one where you can hear the '_well duh, moron' _tacked onto the end. It would therefore come as no surprise to find his cheeks burning slightly in embarrassment as he responded defensively, "Yeah, so? The _Minister_ of _Magic_ said it was okay." He almost winced after he blurted that out – was he even allowed to tell people why he was staying at the Leaky Cauldron? And why did Daniel care, anyway? And why did the man feel familiar? – or was it just him, inventing strange rationalisations as to why he kept answering the man, and honestly to boot?

Daniel quirked an eyebrow at him, and Harry crossed his arms over his chest defensively. "What? He did!"

Daniel spoke in a slow voice, and Harry felt himself shrinking with every word. "Look kid… Harry. I wouldn't trust Fudgy-boy looking after a flobberworm, let alone actually _listen_ (God forbid) to what he says! _You _are a minor, and what if some person decided to take advantage of you, or kidnap you?! No one would know you were gone! And the Minister _isn't_ in charge of child services, so what would he know?"

Yeah, he felt just a bit stupid right now. But still, there was no way in the world he was going back to the Dursleys – Uncle Vernon would probably murder him – and he definitely _did not_ want to have this almost Gift from God cruelly taken away from him before he'd even had the chance to enjoy it! And what did Daniel, a _stranger,_ (because the man was still a stranger, weird 'you-are-familiar' vibes aside) know about him to say that he needed to be with guardians?! "I'm _not_ going to go back to the Dursleys!" He found himself snapping sharply, glaring at the man for good measure.

Harry caught Daniel's eyes widening for a moment, almost too fast for him to see, before the man grimaced and waved his arms around in a wild negative gesture; "You think that I – Hell No! Look, kid, I'm NOT saying you should go back to these 'Dursleys'."

All that righteous indignation from having Daniel even allude to the suggestion that he'd be better off with the Dursleys flowed out of him, and he deflated in relief – he'd been gearing up to fight the man if necessary over the issue – now he was just glad that he wouldn't have to. Daniel had a sour look on his face as he continued, "Yup, I'm not one of those 'kids-can't-take-care-of-themselves-so-let's-wrap-them-in-cotton' people. _(God no, kids are vicious little shits when they want to be.)_ I'm just _pointing_ _out _that that's what the 'law' is." Harry found himself confused at the tone that Daniel put into the word 'law' and how the man had made air quotes with his fingers to emphasise it – he privately thought it was kind of like the tone Ron used when he said 'Snape'.

The man smirked, clapping his hands suddenly; "I know! Kid – " Daniel pointed a finger straight in his face, and Harry flinched involuntarily away from it because of how unexpected it was and how close to his nose it had been " – I, Daniel Harrison Bennett, will be your acting guardian till you get sent off to Hogwarts!" he then glanced sideways at him, still keeping his arms pointing ridiculously in the air as he muttered, "…er, you _do_ go to Hogwarts, right?"

"…Hogwarts. Right." He muttered, because he was in a state of shock/incredulity/disbelief as he just stared. He found it pretty easy to ignore the strange stares that Daniel was drawing from the other occupants of the bar, who seemed to be staring as if primarily thinking '_is he for real_?' – mostly because _he_ was thinking it as well. Although he did wonder just why he got the image of the world recoiling from them in Unholy Terror at the (strange, weird and utterly insane) Exclamation.

"Y-you don't have to do that…" He offered rather more timidly than he'd admit to and in the place of saying something along the lines of 'I don't _want_ you to do that'. It wouldn't do to make the nice – if somewhat psychotic – young adult angry at him. "I can stay out of trouble myself… it's only Diagon Alley after all…" he added, desperately trying to dissuade Daniel from his decision.

Daniel waved a hand, "Nah, it's cool! But… what do you mean, it's 'just' Diagon Alley?"

Harry noticed that the man had narrowed his eyes, but couldn't think of anything he'd said that could have caused it, and decided to answer with the obvious, "Er… you know? The street that the Leaky Cauldron opens into? Diagon Alley?"

Daniel's jaw slackened slightly and for a reason that escaped him started counting off something with his fingers. He looked quite ridiculous, actually. The Boy-Who-Lived stared, wondering just what the heck Daniel was doing.

Very suddenly, Daniel seemed to give up on whatever it was he was doing and focused on him again; "What do you mean, _only_ Diagon Alley?! Kid, what about Vertic? Horizon? Hell, the Limos District is where all the Hogwarts kids your age hang out, isn't it?"

Just what did Daniel mean? Surely… surely he couldn't be saying that there was _more_ than Diagon Alley, right? Harry felt deeply confused… well, confused, and kind of strange – something he couldn't quite put a finger on.

"What? Did you think that there was a magical opening into the magical world from the muggle world through a seedy bar and that that was the only entrance, and the magical world consisted solely of a street that sold _school supplies_?! …Uh. You… actually _did_, didn't you?"

There was more to the magical world than Hogwarts and Diagon Alley? But… no one had ever _said_ anything about it – he would definitely have remembered had they mentioned something like this. Oh. That's what that was. He was _angry_. Not the normal type of anger for him – the type that came quickly and was expelled, usually pointed at the person or thing that had been the cause of the emotion – no, this was a deeper anger. It boiled in his chest and he felt disconnected as his line of vision narrowed down to the brown-haired wizard beside him and he parroted; "There's more than Diagon Alley?"

Daniel might have been surprised by the urgency in his tone, but Harry didn't care one bit – he was wondering, over and over, just _why_ he'd never known. The wizard nodded silently and Harry clenched his fingers into a fist. When would he ever just get the facts straight? Why did he keep learning new stuff out of the blue when he'd first been introduced to the wizarding world by Hagrid _years_ ago?

Harry wordlessly turned away from the concerned-looking Daniel and picked at his meal, ignoring the other wizard's attempts at conversation – he didn't particularly care at the moment for politeness. He spent a while digesting the new information presented to him, trying to envisage what these previously unmentioned areas of the wizarding world looked like.

He'd finished his breakfast, the drink and another kind of 'smoothie' thing that Daniel had bought for him wordlessly and without prompting, (he didn't particularly want it either, but it tasted like pineapples so he drank it) the fact that he'd _finished_ all of that food confusing him greatly – how the heck had he managed that? – when a hand on his shoulder shook him out of his slump.

He glanced up, only to be met with Daniel's pale eyes giving him the third remotely serious expression he'd seen on the wizard that morning. Expecting some kind of lecture or 'talk', he was pleasantly surprised when the man said nothing and only pinned him with a sympathetic look – not pity. Harry was very glad that there was no pity in Daniel's eyes – only understanding. He didn't know what Daniel, the happy-go-lucky-lunatic, could possibly know about being left in the dark about so many things in a society like the wizarding world, but Harry certainly appreciated not being prodded and poked about his thoughts, like would have happened had Hermione been in the room – well, probably that and chiding him for not researching the wizarding world properly.

"Ok kid!" Announced a loud and buoyant voice from beside him, while he was pushed forwards from the friendly slap to his back, "It is time, as your stand-in guardian, for me to properly introduce you to the wonders of the wizarding world!" Harry was worried that the twenty-something man beside him would start bouncing at any second – and wait, why was Daniel muttering something about 'corrupting' under his breath?

"Come on, Harry; I'll do this properly for you since apparently the blowha-er, _person_ who did this first was horribly remiss in their duties!" Daniel stood up, and Harry found himself summarily dragged out of his seat as well.

Daniel started walking towards the exit into Diagon, and Harry stood indecisively, completely off-balance and unsure if he should follow. He glanced helplessly up at the bartender, who was standing next to him, and received a reassuring smile and pat on the back, "It's ok lad, Daniel seems like the good sort – if a bit off in the head. Go on."

With that… reassuring(?) recommendation, as well as the loud call of his name from where Daniel was now apparently waiting for him, Harry made a decision.

A decision that was based on some totally screwy logic and not very much information at all, and one that would change his whole future, without his even realising it.

He gathered all of his Gryffindor courage and followed (unknowingly) his future self out into Diagon Alley.

**

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**

A/N**Heya peoples! Chapter: complete. Finally, yes I know_._ Heh. I'm surprised only one person caught that I (loosely) based his new appearance/identity off of Daniel Radcliffe – I thought it would be terribly ironic to do so, but didn't think anyone would get it. So kudos to -ALittleDifferentFromTheRest- for pointing it out. This chapter is from Harry's POV, so I hope that I've gotten it all straight, and I'll warn you that I'll be switching between their views, mostly because what they think about the situations will be so different that it's interesting. I'm not going to be repeating the scene from Daniel's point of view – I'll leave it to you guys to fill in what they might be thinking from certain cues that the other picks up but may misinterpret and stuff. Well, thanks for all the reviews, hope you enjoyed this :)**

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Extra:_ a few moments of Daniel's POV-_

"Erm, excuse me sir… but… Who are you?" The horribly _timid_ and so cutely and utterly confused recipient of his rant that morning asked, (quite rudely, mind you) abruptly cutting off what Daniel saw as a good lesson for his sparkly-eyed awed soon-to-be devoted subject of his complete and utter awesomeness.

Seriously, sometimes it shocked him how completely and utterly awesome he was – he'd sparkled in the dark, once.

…Of course, that _may_ have had something to do with the Weasley bookends. They'd looked a little shifty, and he seemed to recall convincing them that it was perfectly normal to inquire about the 'mile high club' while on their very first aeroplane trip (Potter-funded) to Vegas that one time and that said 'mile high club' would really just get them free drinks… he still snickered even _thinking_ about their horribly confused expressions upon asking him why that male flight attendant had wanted to chuck them off the plane (mid-flight) and avoided them the rest of the flight, not giving them their meals.

Oh, he knew he was evil, but he'd come to firmly believe that a little evil now and then was a-ok. Without evil there can be no good, and he'd had more than his fair dose of being _good_, so he _had_ to be entitled to a bit of indulgence once in a while.

After all, _they'd_ been the ones to originally point him towards _that place_ in Knockturn Alley that one time, so they deserved it really.

The subtle shifting directly to his right recalled him to the spectacled kid (and what horrible glasses they were too, he'd have to do something about those…) that seemed to be staring at him expectantly. "Er, what was that again?"


	6. Wonderful World

**Exit Stage Left**

••Wonderful World••

_In which there is always more than the eye can see_

"So… how do you get to these other alleys, M- Daniel?"

Daniel had shot his mini-me a warning look when he went to call him 'Mister'; "Well, you're learning", he complemented, sneakily ruffling Harry's hair – "My name's Daniel, nothin' else. And, er – walk? Cos, you know, I find that's the best way to get anywhere… well, except if ya wanna go international, then you hop a portkey or telo-pad. Of course, they're as crappy as each other, and you have to pay through the nose for em, so I find it easier just to sneak in ille- er, how bout we just keep that to ourselves, yeah? You're a real sport, kid. Distraction… ah, yes, it's just up here."

Out of the corner of his eyes, Daniel saw Harry was looking kind of dazed, but he didn't let that bother him – he dazed, distressed and/or shocked many a person in his life. Usually at the same time. "Okay, it's just past Gringotts - the bank, you know."

"I _know_ it's a bank – I'm not stupid." Harry looked disgruntled at the slowness and tone of voice he was speaking in just for the fun of it. Daniel didn't care, if it could get such a reaction out of the kid.

"Oh, so you're not stupid, just ignorant." He commented. "You do know that it's just as bad being one or the other, and even worse when you're both, right?"

"Like you?" Harry muttered under his breath.

Daniel couldn't have felt more proud.

"What was that?" He instead asked sharply, levelling a spooky 'I-make-kids-cry' glare down at him.

"Nothing." The teen said quickly, wide green eyes looking up at him.

"That's what I thought." Daniel replied smugly. 'Ok, I think it was…" he looked around, and upon seeing the big lettering of 'Vertic Alley', made a noise of triumph and grabbed Harry, dragging the kid over to it. "Here it is!"

Harry was looking at him like he didn't see his complete and utter awesomeness. "It's a wall, with an advertisement on it." He stated.

Daniel scoffed, "Ah, young padawan, there is much for you to learn. This isn't just a wall, see? Riddle me this – how do you get to Diagon Alley?"

Daniel was levelled with a look that clearly questioned his sanity. "No, really! Come on, share it with the class."

In lieu of pointing out that there was no 'class' around, Harry Potter replied, "Well… you go into the Leaky Cauldron, and then you go out the back, and then you… tap the bricks to open up the wall!"

Daniel chuckled at his surprised expression; "You're such a *cute* kid! Aww, you look like you've just discovered KFC's secret recipe – and don't glare at me, cos' which one of us here is taking the time to be _someone's_ totally cool stand-in guardian?"

"…" The put-out Boy-Who-Lived mumbled something under his breath, looking quite subdued and chastised now. "What was that? You'll have to speak up, kid." Daniel mocked smugly.

"… you." Harry muttered grudgingly.

Hmm. Maybe not as chastised as Daniel would have liked. Seemed his broody-teenager phase had started sooner than he remembered. "That's right!" He replied blithely. "Now, watch and learn."

Daniel mimed reaching into his pocket, only realising belatedly that he _still_ didn't have a freaking wand on him (maybe it was in the stupid trunk?) and quickly improvised on the fly, conjuring a stick that would pass for a wand in a superficial inspection. Mentally wiping his forehead in relief he pulled it out. "Okay, whatcha gotta do for this one is find the brick that's got a smiley-face on it – and no, I'm not pulling this outta my ass… see, there it is! And then you just poke it with the tip of your wand."

He pushed it in, and unlike how the bricks had reformed into the entrance for Diagon, the wall emitted a blinding flash of light, making Harry, who hadn't known what to expect (and hadn't been told because Daniel was a bastard like that) quickly shield his eyes, a pained gasp escaping from him.

"Oh it's not that bad, you wuss." Daniel cajoled, smirking down at the frozen kid.

When Harry finally removed his hands from his face, he stared. "…Madame Puddifoot's?" He ask/stated, shooting an incredulous look at the pink, sparkling sign pronouncing their arrival in the shop, his masculine sensibilities rebelling at the heavily pink and frilly décor, not to mention the heavy perfume in the air.

Daniel shuddered and quickly started shepherding the young Potter to the door , swatting away a floating heart as he did so. "Don't ask. Just… don't. _Stupid wizards_…."

**«±ΰ±»**

"But… why did we come out in M-" the glare Daniel shot at Harry made the boy-hero re-think his use of the name, "M- a shop?" He finished.

Daniel rolled his eyes, "Wizard Logic. No, seriously. Hazza, have you ever seen wizards do the _logical_ thing? Hell no! In every situation, they _must_ take the stupidest path! I think that magic mucks with their brains. Of course I'm fine, cos' I'm just awesome like that, but you might wanna watch out for magic's immense propensity to erode away logical thinking over time. I think it also has something to do with the company you keep, though." Daniel added, looking pensive.

"That's it?" Harry asked sceptically, "But… _why_? Why do we have to go through walls just to get into a new street… and _where_ _is_ the street, because you've been leading me through this hallway for a while?"

Daniel shrugged, "The street's just outta this hall, so soon you'll get your first look. The wall thing? Meh, I think it has something to do with paranoid delusions – even if an 'enemy force' made it through the Leaky Caldron, which is the outer-most wall, or any of the other entrance points, for that matter, they'd still have to know where and how to get through the next and so on. Now, stop here and back up!"

Daniel shooed Harry back, and the thirteen-year-old hit the bright-red wall, revealing the roughly tyre-sized black dot that stood out starkly against the wooden flooring of the hall way that Harry had somehow completely missed the existence of.

"B-but that wasn't there before!" He protested.

Daniel shot a look at him, "Well of _course_ it wasn't there before! You asking about how to get out brought it up, and me telling you about the exit finally let you see it. Now shut up for a second here and let me think."

Daniel paced a tight circle around the outside of the spot (a quite strange sight) and then tapped the middle of it with his shoe. "Okay, the door should be there now – come on."

"…?" Daniel, seeing Harry's reluctance and plain confusion, let out an exasperated sigh and grabbed him, steering him down and around the corner (that also hadn't been there before) and through the door.

As Harry stared in shock at the new street, Daniel flourished his hands and announced; "Welcome, to Vertic Alley, Third District! Keep your fingers away from the lamps, pants tucked into your shoes and your wand in a secure position at all times! Oh, and take a step to the left."

Daniel yanked Harry away and out of the path of the kid on a toy broom that was whizzing down the street.

"Umm… is it just me… or does this look like more than a street?" Harry asked, confused at the tidier shopfronts and more modern-looking shops, as well as the trees he could see further down one end.

"Huh?" Daniel asked absently, looking around for a certain shop that he felt they needed to make a priority out of.

"This… 'Vertic Alley' – it looks really big for a single street." Harry expanded, looking expectantly up at his pseudo-guardian.

"Well, that's 'cos it's _more _than just a street, kid! We're in the Third, duh – I just told you!" Daniel said, as if that was (or should be) completely comprehensible to the boy.

"The… Third?" Harry parroted, rather helplessly.

"Yeah, you know, the Third!" Daniel repeated, waving vaguely at the line of shop fronts.

"…But I thought this was Vertic Alley?" Daniel stared down at the mini-Saviour for a second in incomprehension, before it clicked.

"Oops." He chuckled and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly while dodging out of the way of another kid on a toy broom zooming past. "Heh, sorry Harry, I kinda forgot that it wouldn't be obvious to you – I guess I better explain it from the start, huh?"

"That would be helpful." The young Potter muttered under his breath, slightly glaring up at his self-appointed guardian.

"Okay okay! Don't get your wand in a knot! Hmm how should I… alright! So, you know Diagon alley, yes? Well, Diagon is part of the Fourth District – basically, you've got access to school supplies, novelties, more general wares, and then, of course, the more shady stores in Knockturn – but those are mostly the ones made readily available to all wizards that visit Britain – you pick up a book, and it'll direct you to the Leaky Cauldron to enter our British wizarding stores – foreign wizards won't get further than the Fourth unless they have friends in Britain to show them into the other Districts. Now, along with the Fourth, you've got the First, Second and Third – we're in the Third at the moment, and it specialises in more things – like say, medical supplies, better quality goods, furniture and the like, and all the stuff you can buy _here_ will be better quality than what you can get on Diagon (but also generally more expensive) – you'll also find the weird second-hand stores here. The Second is also referred to as the 'Limos District', and I think that's because of a guy named Limos who managed to create the refractory colour-modifying ward that's still in operation today – and no, I won't explain that, you'll get it when you see what the District looks like. The Second contains a flee market, as well as shops focused mostly towards teen witches and wizards in one part, and then it also contains the night life – pubs, night clubs, but also restaurants and stuff of the much more 'legal' persuasion than you can find… somewhere I'm not gonna mention." Daniel shot a mostly playful shifty-eyed look at the slack-jawed Potter.

Harry looked like he was having trouble digesting all the information. "…I had no idea it was so… _much_." He muttered. "Why are there four districts though? Oh, and you didn't mention the First." He added.

Daniel sighed. "Why four? Eh, I couldn't tell ya. But you'll know when we move between the districts because you'll have to move a wall outta the way. The First? Well, that's mostly housing and apartments for wizards and witches that want to be in a community – you won't find any of the pure-blood supremacists there, so it's a nice place – there's also regular port-keys you can catch from there to tourist spots like the Zoo and stuff. It's also called 'Horizon Alley' because of the street running through it." He shrugged, scratching his brain to try and explain it all in a way that Harry could understand.

"Look, there's four of 'em, the outer-most being the Fourth and most easily accessible. Then, going by the numbers, you get through walls so that the First is in the middle – like a big onion, with layers I guess. Why all the districts and stuff? Eh, that's the paranoia. I think it's to protect from invading forces (or at least _external_ ones, anyway) – the attacker will be at the least slowed down while passing the walls, and at the most stopped in their tracks because they can't find the entrance points to the next district. Housing and stuff is in the middle for that reason, too."

"…Okay." Harry said after a moment, having to adjust his view of what he had thought to be 'just' Diagon Alley drastically as he absorbed the new information.

"I just have one question." Harry said a moment later, and waited until Daniel was looking at him expectantly to ask.

"Why do I need to keep my pants tucked into my shoes?"

**«±ΰ±»**

"Oh no, I'm afraid I cannot fix his eyesight today."

Harry opened his mouth to protest, but the man shot him a look that had him closing it again. "The _reason_ I will not fix them today is that it would mean a lot of pain on the young lad's part for very little reason at all. You see, his prescription will no doubt change as he ages, and if I fixed it so his eyesight was perfect _now_, he would just need glasses later still. Also, I _never_ perform any permanent modifications on _any_ subject before they have passes their age of majority." The man sniffed, looking as if even the thought of such an act mortally offended his very existence.

Harry's eyes were wide, but Daniel just raised a brow curiously, examining the shop and half-heartedly listening to the wizard's rant as he poked different sets of glasses that were displayed along the walls. "And why would that be?" He drawled disinterestedly.

The man's lips thinned into a scowl and he said, "Why, _everybody_ knows not to attempt any kind of bodily modification until after the age of majority! It is when a wizard's magic reaches its full potential, and there is a high chance of it attacking any changes that came about unnaturally in the course of a wizard or witch's lifetime! Why, I believe some people have been driven into insanity upon discovering some… things rather left unknown that reverted after that! Also, if the person's magic cannot rectify the change… well, it doesn't bare thinking about!"

Harry's faced twisted into something strange as he imagined just what the wizard was hinting at, each scenario more twisted than the last. Daniel's bored voice broke him out of this rather unhealthy line of thought, "Yeah sure, no magic-fix, gottcha. Just fit him for glasses, would ya? Oh and put in a few perks, yeah?"

Harry hadn't expected that getting new glasses would be such a big deal. When he got his first glasses, his Aunt Petunia had just asked for the cheapest ones in the store and that had been that. _This _time, the shopkeeper seemed absolutely set on putting every single pair in the entire shop onto his face, no matter how horrible (there was a neon-pink pair that stood out starkly in his vividest nightmares when considering just what type his aunt may buy his if he ever managed to completely lose his glasses that didn't bare thinking about, really) and seemed really fixed on whether he should have square, rectangle, oval or circle frames, and then which _colour_… it took almost an hour for the man to finally stop and declare that _this_ pair was perfect!

The glasses were unassuming, and if anything could be said about them it was that they complemented the young boy's appearance, instead of completely overshadowing his face as the old, bulky round and black ones had.

"These glasses come equipped with a heat sensor, zoom option and, and best of all, they'll point you to the closest source of alcohol when prompted." The shop keeper stated in complete seriousness, bustling off with them towards the counter and taking out his wand, waving it and doing something to the glass.

Harry frowned at the last option mentioned, and looked confusedly up at Daniel.

"Trust me, kid, you'll be grateful when you're older." Daniel muttered to Harry out of the corner of his mouth as he passed on his way to the counter, pulling a wallet out of his back pocket.

Harry watched disconnectedly as Daniel handed some galleons over to the man behind the counter, conversing in a low tone. Even though his world was blurry from the lack of glasses at the moment, Harry had a sneaking suspicion that the man who had made himself his temporary guardian was smirking. He felt like he had missed something, and it had something to do with the silent communication between the two adults, but was at a loss as to _what_. In his state of confusion, the thought of protesting the money Daniel was spending on him didn't even enter his mind.

Daniel returned from the counter and handed Harry his new glasses, "Come on kid, we've gotta hit a few more places today."

Harry eventually managed to get his wits about him enough to demand that they visit Gringotts so he could stop Daniel from spending money on him. It was strange, although not unpleasant to have an adult (in appearance if nothing else) taking an interest in his well-being, and throughout the week he eventually grew to appreciate the weirdness that was his life and its new addition with Daniel Bennett. The man actually forced him to get proper muggles clothes that _fit_, and took him to locations that, in his words, "all people just have to see". Before the end of the week, Harry had been coerced into going against the Minister of Magic's words and sneak into muggle London to visit famous landmarks that he'd never had the opportunity to see before like Big Ben and Trafalgar Square.

Harry couldn't help but be thankful that his week of freedom had been shaken up, and was truly happy with his first experience of being able to be 'Just Harry'. He was dreading when Daniel would discover (as was bound to happen eventually) that he was more than just Harry, he was Harry _Potter_… he didn't want to lose the man who was coming to feel like something of a big brother to him. Would Daniel be angry for the deception? Would he completely change his reactions to him? Would he want nothing more to do with him?

Harry hoped that Daniel would never find out… but school time was fast approaching, and for the first time ever he didn't want it to. When he went to Hogwarts, he'd never see Daniel again.

**«±ΰ±»**

_Yes yes, finally an update. Eh, enjoy, and sorry 'bout the wait – the explanation is on my profile but I can't be stuffed to write it again here :). Oh, and any spelling mistakes and such just post em in and i'll do my best to change 'em - I typed this up really fast an haven't gotten a chance to re-read it._


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